Good Reading Podcast

At the age of twenty-eight Ben Bravery found himself facing the terrifying spectre of stage three colorectal cancer. As a scientist, Ben understood the seriousness of the condition but what he didn't expect was how being a patient would make him feel. After difficult and complicated surgery and months of chemotherapy he decided he needed a change – and to make change. The intense medical training he then pursued to qualify as a doctor gave him a new perspective into a healthcare system under pressure and the challenges doctors face every day. The Patient Doctor is an open and honest account of his experience as both a patient and a doctor and what we need to do to ensure that both are treated with care and compassion.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Dr Ben Bravery about the harsh physical reality of colorectal cancer, how better communication could improve the experience of diagnosis, treatment and recovery, the surprising place he found the care he needed, and how the whole experience led him to the study of psychiatry and a pathway to a better understanding of both sides of the healthcare system.

Nilesh Makwana is the CEO of the global award-winning business illuminance Solutions. This memoir is a vivid, honest and often hilarious look back on a life full of challenges, of good luck and bad and all the things Nilesh learnt along the way. It's a blueprint for how to succeed at university, in business, and how to bounce back after failure. Nilesh Makwana has forged his own path and shares his experience in the hope that his story might ignite a spark and furnish hope and self-belief in others.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Nilesh Makwana about his humble beginnings in Gujarat, India, the challenges of life as an international student, the job that opened his eyes to the world, the power of persistence and the unstoppable entrepreneurial spirit inside him.

Winter has come to North Carolina and Temperance Brennan is content to dote on her daughter Katy, finally returned to civilian life from the army. One night, they find a box on the back porch. Inside: a very fresh human eyeball. GPS coordinates etched into the eyeball lead to a Benedictine monastery where an equally macabre discovery awaits. More bodies turn up to complicate matters and each mimics a homicide that a younger Tempe had been called in to analyse.

Tempe is at a loss to establish the motive for what is going on and then Katy disappears. With the help of Erskine “Skinny” Slidell, and Andrew Ryan, Tempe’s Montreal-based beau, they discover that revenge is the real motive. Tempe will have to revisit the past to unravel the present.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Kathy Reichs about living and breathing Temperance Brennan, the bizarre and gruesome real-life cases that find their way into her books, and how science can be the catalyst for casting great characters, stories and settings.

Daryl Van Tongeren has been researching social psychology and the virtue of humility for over ten years. As the first book on humility in the field of psychology, Humble is a milestone in the exploration of the benefits of humility to the individual and to society. This remarkable book shares the foundational research and new ideas about why humility is important, how to nurture it for personal and societal change, and why we need it now more than ever.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs talks to Daryl Van Tongeren about the research into social psychology and the the virtue of humility, how humility can work positively with ambition and achievement and transform our ideas about leadership, and why humility can function as a liberating, empowering and revolutionary force.

Things are getting messy for Stella Prentice: her husband is away; she's juggling a full-time job with family that includes a demanding four-year-old and a tricky stepdaughter. Stella reluctantly hires an au pair in the hope that she will help lighten the load. Elise, a staunch feminist and Stella's mother-in-law thinks this is a terrible idea but promises not to meddle.

Ava, the much-anticipated au pair, finally arrives to fill the void, though she too is facing her own life challenges. But she comes bearing a handful of cherished recipes passed down to her from her mother. Together these three women will attempt the seemingly impossible: create order out of chaos and find love and comfort in the mess.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Tori Haschka about the three women in this story each searching for solutions, the essential ingredient for a great feast, and finding great ideas and stories in lived experience.

Sam Vincent was a twenty-something writer working in Canberra when he gets a call from his mother – his father has got his hand caught in a wood chipper. When Sam returns to the family farm to help out, it is the beginning of a process that leads him to think differently about the farm, his father and his relationship with both.

Sam's farming apprenticeship is an education in grit and shit but gradually Sam moves from farmhand to custodian of the land, and along the way he finds himself embracing the idea of regenerative farming. The result is a not only the introduction of new methods of farming but a continuation and development of his father's ideas about how a farm should operate.

My Father And Other Animals is an affectionate, funny and surprising memoir, deeply rooted in the notion of regeneration – of land, family and culture.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Sam Vincent about how his father didn't quite fit the profile of the archetypal Australian farmer, the moment when Sam's life took a new and unexpected direction, and how learning to work with the land and the idea regenerative farming became a passion.

Vince Reid left the small town of Manson a decade ago, promising never to return. But now an insurance company wants him to investigate a claim on a suspicious car crash and he is forced to relive all that drove him away from the place he grew up.

As Reid's investigation unfolds, nothing is as it seems: rumours are swirling about the popular woman who crashed the car, killing her husband - the man linked to the mysterious disappearance of two local girls. As Reid veers off course he finds himself in the dangerous position of taking on the town – again.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to J.P. Pomare about creating tension in the setting of crime fiction, turning an unremarkable person into a great character, and using the art of deception to get inside the reader's mind.

In August 1925, Audrey Jacob shot dead her former fiance Cyril Gidley in full view of hundreds of guests at a charity ball in Perth's Government House. This was supposed to be an open shut case of wilful murder – until lawyer Arthur Haynes is assigned to her defence. Haynes' ability to find the right legal angle and to play the press and the jury, led to a sensational result. 

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Leigh Straw about Perth and Fremantle in the 1920s, the emerging phenomenon of the flapper, the importance of a savvy and well-connected lawyer, and Leigh Straw's obsession with true crime and the untold stories of women.

Teacher and single Mum Alex is escaping the city in search of new start with her young daughter; Bellbird River matriarch Victoria finds herself at a crossroads when globe-trotting, opera-singing cousin Gabrielle moves back home; town baker and Bellbird River fixture, Janine is confronting her past and her present; and newcomer Debbie is trying to leave a painful past behind and create something new. 

Amid the melodies and camaraderie of the Bellbird River Country Choir each of these women will find the courage to put the past behind them and discover that friendship is much closer to home than they ever realised.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Sophie Green about the cast of female characters that are at the heart of Bellbird River, the sustaining power of friendship and love, what's in and what's out of the Bellbird River Country Choir's choral repertoire, and how music can build bridges and bind communities. 

Jason Bourne has faced many killers in his time but none more dangerous than the assassin that calls himself Lennon. Bourne believes this elusive killer has a new employer called the Pyramid. The only clue to the group's agenda is a young German woman whose identity turns out to be a lie and who now lies dead in a Washington D.C. Park.

Finding the truth about this woman may be Bourne's only chance to finally catch Lennon and undercover the conspiracy behind the Pyramid. The trail leads Bourne from Iceland to Washington D.C and to New York. The chase comes with high stakes as Bourne's former lover, Abbey Laurent finds herself in the crosshairs of Lennon and the Pyramid.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Brian Freeman about walking in the footsteps of Robert Ludlum, why Jason Bourne endures as a character after forty years, spinning the web of intrigue into one of the most intense thrillers yet, and why the Jason Bourne books continue to be among the most powerful psychological thrillers of the genre.