Good Reading Podcast

How far you would you go for love? Franny Stone is determined to go to the end of the earth, following the last of the Arctic terns on what may be their final migration to Antarctica.As animal populations plummet and commercial fishing faces prohibition, Franny talks her way onto one of the few remaining boats heading south. But as she and the eccentric crew travel further from shore and safety, the dark secrets of Franny’s life begin to unspool. A daughter’s yearning search for her mother. An impulsive, passionate marriage. A shocking crime. Haunted by love and violence, Franny must confront what she is really running towards – and from.In this episode, Erin Christie speaks to Charlotte McConaghy about The Last Migration - and the incredible amount of research that went into it - launching a book in a pandemic, and leaning into the climate crisis. Buy the book here: https://booktopia.kh4ffx.net/bE316

Hailed as ‘a fearless exposer of folly, vice and crime’ when it first hit the streets in the 1890s, Truth was later condemned by a High Court Judge as ‘a wretched little paper, reeking of filth, injurious to the health of house servants and young girls’. Adrian Tame knows that better than anyone as he worked for Truth for more than a decade as a reporter and news editor. In the years it was owned by the Murdoch family he worked alongside young Rupert as he cut his teeth on the shock horror scandals that graced the pages of Truth when it was selling a whopping 400,000 copies a week.Funny, often outrageous and always thoroughly entertaining, The Awful Truth is a rollercoaster ride through an colourful era of newspapers and larger-than-life reporters that we will never see the like of again. In this episode, Adrian joins Max Lewis to chat about revisiting his scandalous time at 'Truth' (including a Bikie story too shocking for the book), and his opinions on journalism today. Find out more: https://bit.ly/2DlcwHW

Suddenly, when the country caught fire, people realised what the government has not: that climate change is killing us. But climate deaths didn’t start in 2019. Medical officers have been warning of a health emergency as temperatures rise for years, and for at least a decade Australians have been dying from the plagues of climate change – from heat, flood, disease, smoke. And now, pandemic.In this detailed, considered, compassionate book, Paddy Manning paints us the big picture. He revisits some headline events which might have faded in our memory, and brings to our attention less well-publicised killers. In each case, he has interviewed scientists to explore the link to climate change and asks how – indeed, whether – we can better prepare ourselves in the future.In this episode, Paddy joins Max Lewis to open up about his experience in writing the book, and how the current climate disaster and COVID-19 pandemic have more in common than we might think.Find out more: https://bit.ly/30c2sKk

As a child, Julie dreamed of being somewhere else, of making a difference. Now, she can’t wait to meet the nuns she will live with and the children she will provide physiotherapy for in Ethiopia. But Julie has trouble sticking to convent rules and soon finds herself wondering how much difference a single physio can make anyway. When she takes a teaching role at a university, Julie finally feels closer to fulfilling her dreams – training Ethiopia’s first physiotherapists, treating paediatric patients, and losing her heart to a handsome colleague. Then civil unrest reaches the university, forcing Julie’s students to choose between their safety and their future. When it comes to being a part of change, why do all steps feel like small steps?In this episode, Max Lewis joins Julie as she reflects on her time in Ethiopia.Find out more: https://bit.ly/3f6vsao

Murph Cooper is famous … and he's not happy about it.Kid Normal and the Super Zeroes used to save the day in secret. But suddenly everyone knows who they are.Oily villain Nicholas Knox has told the public that superheroes are dangerous. He wants to lock them all up and take over the world! *Cue evil cackling*Murph must expose Knox's evil plan, or the world of heroes is doomed forever!In this episode, Max Lewis joins Greg and Chris to chat about the 'Kid Normal' series, and it's thrilling final book. Find out more: https://bit.ly/2AiG5II

In 2015, Eva Holland was forced to confront her greatest fear when her mother unexpectedly had a stroke and passed away. After the shock and grief subsided, Holland was sent on a deep dive into the science of fear, digging into an array of universal and personal questions.On her journey, Holland meets with scientists who are working to eliminate phobias with a single pill, she explores the lives of the few individuals who suffer from a rare disease that prevents them from ever feeling fear, and she immerses herself in her own fears, including hurling herself out of a plane.In this episode, Max Lewis chats with Eva Holland about her debut 'Nerve', to find out more about her journey into her own fears, and how she came out the other side. Find out more: https://bit.ly/2LZAlpq

On a night of raging winds and rain, Captain Cook's Endeavour lies splintered on a coral reef off the coast of far north Australia. A small disparate band of survivors, fracturing already, huddle on the shore of this strange land - their pitiful salvage scant protection from the dangers of the unknown creatures and natives that live here.Watching these mysterious white beings, the Guugu Yimidhirr people cannot decide if they are ancestor spirits to be welcomed - or hostile spirits to be speared. One headstrong young boy, Garrgiil, determines to do more than watch and to be the one to find out what exactly they are.In 'On a Barbarous Coast', Craig Cormick and Harold Ludwick tell a story of what might have been if things went a little differently. The pair joined Max Lewis to chat about creating fiction from reality, and the importance of Indigenous perspective when it comes to the discovery of this land. Find out more: https://bit.ly/3d888ZC

When urban academic Hayley Katzen moves to a remote Australian cattle property to live with her farmer girlfriend, she hopes, at last, to find home. But this is no happy-ever-after tree change. Lecture halls, law reform and the arts are replaced with castrating calves, shovelling manure, fire-fighting and anti-gas blockades. In a place that attracts people who live by their own rules, Hayley must confront her limitations and preconceptions to forge her own identity.Grab a copy of Untethered here: https://bit.ly/2VFwZh9

Anna Austen has always been told she must marry rich. Her future depends upon it. While her dear cousin Fanny has a little more choice, she too is under pressure to find a suitor.But how can either girl know what she wants? Is finding love even an option? The only person who seems to have answers is their Aunt Jane. She has never married. In fact, she's perfectly happy, so surely being single can't be such a bad thing?The time will come for each of the Austen girls to become the heroines of their own stories. Will they follow in Jane's footsteps?In this episode, historian Lucy Worsley chats to Erin Christie about her love of history and Jane Austen, and how she plans to pass this on to the next generation of young girls through her writing.

It’s 1972. When hot-headed, impetuous Jack Muir gets off the ship in Durban, he fails to get back on. Instead, he sails into misadventure, fleeing the stifling town of Genoralup to try to lose himself in South Africa at the height of apartheid. But the past has a way of catching up with you, and soon Jack is running again, this time to a kibbutz in Israel.In the course of a lifetime, Jack will travel far, always caught between fleeing from and seeking those things he needs: a mother’s precious gift, a lover in a time of war, the loss of a child, a kind and steady woman.And, across time and across continents, old Jack Muir will remember those who helped him become a decent man, a better father and a friend.In this episode, Western Australian author Jon Doust chats with Greg Dobbs about 'Return Ticket', the final book in his trilogy that began with the Booker longlisted 'Boy on a Wire'. Grab a copy: https://bit.ly/2Y9AZIj