Good Reading Podcast

Gabe Ahern makes his living trapping wild dogs in the remote rangelands of Western Australia. When he stumbles upon a gang of people smugglers about to execute one of their victims, Gabe's solitary life is thrown into turmoil.When he rescues young Afghan refugee Amin from certain death, Gabe is reluctantly drawn into a vicious game where he becomes the hunted. Confronting crooked police, wily roo-shooter Chase Fowler and a ruthless criminal gang, Gabe must rely on all his bush skills and cunning just to come out alive. In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Michael Trant about drawing on real-life experiences to create great characters, his own awakening to the plight of refugees and his respect for the wild dogs of the Australian outback.

Freak Out is the story of how we as a nation were dragged into global culture by the unstoppable momentum of rock and pop music. The music of the sixties spoke to young people, encouraging them to engage with the world in a new way and to embrace the changes all around them.The sixties witnessed an explosion of musical styles that crossed musical borders and changed minds. From The Beatles to Bob Dylan, from the Fugs to King Crimson, Tony Wellington explores the extraordinary chain of events that brought new meaning and exerted enormous influence on the way we lived and viewed the world.In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Tony Wellington about why the sixties continues to be a musical and social reference point, how bands like The Beatles and individuals like Bob Dylan bands drove musical and social change, and how Australia came of age in a defining period of music history.

Ray Vialoux is in big trouble and he needs Marshall Grade's help. Over dinner in a Brooklyn restaurant the conversation is cut short by a gunshot that leaves Ray Vialoux dead on the floor. As Marshall investigates, he discovers there's more to the murder than meets the eye. Exit.45 is the third book in the Marshall Grade series and takes us into the depths of the murky world of NYC drug dealers, bag men, bent cops and mob players.In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Ben Sanders about the journey from New Zealand to New York, his lifelong passion for crime fiction and the advantages of being a crime fiction outsider.

In this collection of essays Ann Patchett steps outside the world of fiction into the general mess of life. Exploring themes of family, friendship, marriage, failure and success, These Precious Days is a personal meditation on the universal themes that affect us all. In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Ann Patchett about the easy joy of the essay, getting your house in order, and how a late night short story led to a life-changing friendship with Tom Hanks.

This monumental collaboration between award-winning author John Hughes and internationally-acclaimed painter and printmaker Marco Luccio breathes new life into ancient stories. A work of art in itself, this magnificent limited edition, individually signed and numbered book brings together Hughes' unique gift for storytelling and Luccio's bold and energetic images in the media of charcoal, etching and drypoint.In a series of narrative adaptations of Greek tragedies incorporating versions by Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides, John Hughes explores the universal themes of love, power, war, hate, revenge, sadness and ambition in evocative new renderings. In response, Marco Luccio has captured the spirit of ancient Greece, in all its beauty and its terror in a series of images that are the visual equivalent to Hughes epic tales.In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to John Hughes about the journey from idea to reality, bringing ancient stories into the present, why the Greek legends still resonate with readers today, and meeting the challenge of a colossal and ambitious production five years in the making.

Jock Serong is the winner of 2021 Historical Novel Society's ARA Prize for Historical Fiction for the second book in a three part trilogy exploring the history around the Furneaux group of islands off the north-eastern coast of Tasmania.Eliza Grayling reluctantly sets off from Sydney Cove on the Danish schooner Moonbird in search of the wreck of the Howrah, lost in the islands of the Bass Strait carrying valuable but uncertain cargo. Her fellow passengers include her blind alcoholic father, a curious cross-dressing captain and the mysterious Dr Gideon, a botanist and apparent man of science.The journey is compromised by several deaths while at sea and when the Moonbird approaches it's destination, the truth they seek is not all it seems.This remarkable work of historical fiction brings together real historical figures and events with vividly imagined characters to recreate a journey into the disturbing heart of a brutal period in Australia's colonial history.In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Jock Serong about the role of historical fiction in opening up our hidden history, his fascination with the Furneaux Islands and how real and imagined historical figures can coexist in fiction writing and bring history to life.

Christine Manfield's love affair with India and Indian food goes back more than thirty years. Extensive travel and a brilliant culinary mind, marked by an insatiable curiosity has culminated in a book that goes beyond what we think of as Indian food.Indian Cooking Class brings together everything Christine has learned and all recipes she has collected into a guide to Indian cuisine that opens up new worlds for the home cook. From classic curries to new takes on salad, recreating irresistible snacks and refreshing our taste for seafood and desserts, this is a book for everyone and all dietary persuasions looking for a way into one of the world's great cuisines.In this episode Gregory Dobbs talks to Christine Manfield about using Indian spices successfully, making the distinction between spice and heat, looking beyond Vindaloo and Butter Chicken and opening a window on the vast and varied world of Indian cuisine.

Following on from David Hunt's first two volumes of The Unauthorised History of Australia, Girt and True Girt, Volume 3 takes a humorous look into the people that laid the foundations of a nation and our cultural identity. It's an epic tale of charlatans and costermongers, of bush bards and even bushier beards and ladies who just weren't going to take it anymore.Meet Alfred Deakin, our second Prime Minister, who took advice from the dead; Sir Henry Parkes, whose legendary libido spawned at least seventeen children; and Catherine Helen Spence whose feminist utopian vision for the future included free contraceptives and easy divorce. These are but a few of the citizens who helped make Australia what it is today – for better or worse!In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to David Hunt about the men and women who set out to define and redefine our national identity, why it's important to crap on our national icons and the dangers of infusing irony into writing about Australian history in Girt Nation: The Unauthorised History of Australia Volume 3.

Lynne McGranger is the longest serving female cast member of a television soap opera in Australia, having starred as Irene Roberts on Home and Away for over twenty-eight years. But before Home and Away, there was a varied career in the theatre and in the playground at Lugarno Public School as a Grade 4 teacher.In this hilarious and heart-warming memoir, Lynne talks about her early family life, surviving the perils of fad diets as a teenager, a stint in stand-up comedy and on to a very public career as Irene Roberts on Australia's favourite beach-side soap, Home and Away.In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Lynne McGranger about separating Lynne from Irene, the transition from teaching to acting, and the highs and lows of the creative life.

Oscar is out and about looking for the best place to skateboard when he comes across two other kids who reckon they've found it. Holding a mirror at just the right angle gives you a one-way ticket to the world's greatest skate park. Through a crack in reality, Oscar finds himself on an urgent quest, along with the Mettlestone-Staranise sisters, to unlock a silver spell that's trapped the Elven city of Dun-sorey-lo-vay-lo-hey.'The Astonishing Chronicles of Oscar From Elsewhere' is the fourth book in Jaclyn Moriarty's Kingdoms and Empires series.In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Jaclyn Moriarty about the origins of the cheeky, skateboard-wielding boy named Oscar, how you're never too young to be a sceptic, and how just looking like an adult doesn't necessarily make you one.