Good Reading Podcast

From the coast of Western Australia to Sydney’s suburbs, young people are discovering nature in their neighbourhoods and setting up nesting boxes for birds, cleaning up waterways, planting to attract bees and koalas, and building insect hotels. They’re learning about amazing native species and finding ways to protect them.

The Bee Squad inspires you to take part in these exciting adventures and projects that support threatened species by doing things like:

• learning how to put together a nature sleuth toolkit
• planting to attract pollinators
• using the tally sheet to record flora and fauna sightings
• following the tips to ace your wildlife photography.

The best part is, you don’t need to live near a national park or protected area to get involved – you can make a difference from your balcony, backyard, local park or school.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Dr Judy Friedlander about biodiversity and why it is so important to all species in the food chain, why pollination is critical and not limited to just bees, and how 'Biodiversity Champions can work together to create change and a greater appreciation of the natural world.

The Unlocking: An Autism Story unfolds in pandemic-stricken Melbourne, charting one family’s desperate battle against the escalating behavior of their autistic toddler. Amid the lack of in-person services, Harry exhibits severely restricted eating, obsessive-compulsive tendencies, crippling separation anxiety, and a demand avoidance that impedes every function in his young life. Harry meets the description of Pathological Demand Avoidance, a sub-type of autism that is not yet recognised in Australia, where an individual exhibits an anxiety-based need for control by avoiding the ordinary demands of living. During a break between lockdowns, and with much trepidation, the family embark upon a journey with applied behaviour analysis (ABA) therapy. ABA is an intensive therapy considered the gold standard in early intervention for autism, but with a controversial past. The outcome is life-changing. Beneath the veil of dysfunction and anxiety, they discover an outrageously creative, highly intelligent, and hilarious little boy.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Porscia Lam about the attitude adjustment she was compelled to make, the challenges she faced in understanding Pathological Demand Avoidance and Applied Behavioural Analysis therapy, and the impact on her family's mental health.

When nineteen-year-old farm girl Adelaide Hoffman applies for a cadetship at the Gunnawah Gazette, she sees it as her ticket out of a life too small for her. The paper's owner, Valdene Bullark, seeing something of the girl she once was in young Adelaide, puts her straight to work.  What starts as a routine assignment covering an irrigation project soon puts Adelaide on the trail of a much bigger story. Water is money in farming communities, and when Adelaide starts asking questions, it's like she's poked a bull ant's nest. Someone will do whatever it takes to stop Adelaide and Val finding out how far the river of corruption and crime runs.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Ronni Salt about her mysterious life on X, the people, the places and exploring beneath the surface of small town life in the Riverina, and why why water and corruption go hand-in-hand.

After a 30-year absence Agnes is returning to Australia, the country of her birth, at the behest of her aging, narcissistic mother. Having undergone a long period of psychotherapy she now entertains a hope that burning questions will be answered, haunting mysteries solved, and buried memories encouraged into the light. Something has blighted her life since childhood. Something has cast a long shadow over her existence, affecting her ability to grasp at life fully, to develop sustained relationships and to appreciate her own sense of self-worth.

In a leafy suburb of Sydney, a chance meeting in front of her early childhood home resurrects memories of a traumatic event. This represents the moment young Agnes starts to realise, and repress, feelings of confusion, cruelty and alienation from those who should love her the most. Agnes – A childhood betrayed and reclaimed is the revelatory, true account of one woman’s determination to grapple with - and heal - the ills that have beset her past.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Judy king about when a memoir becomes a novel, how remembering can influence the shape of a novel, and how creativity can lead to redemption.

All Kim wants to do is play Dungeons & Dragons with his friends and ride his bike around the local lake. But he has always lived in the shadow of his younger sister. Eila is a prodigy, and everyone talks about how smart she is, though in Kim's eyes, she has no common sense. So when Eila finds an enigmatic, otherworldly globe which gives her astonishing powers, Kim not only has to save his sister from herself, he might also have to save the world from his sister!

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Garth Nix about his childhood obsession with the Dungeons and Dragons board game, how that game was fundamental to his development as an author, and the snippets of his own childhood growing up in Canberra that have crept into this story.

Will Helloran is sixteen years old and lives with his father in the Canberra dome complex that protects its inhabitants from the corrosive atmosphere outside. At night his dreams are haunted by his beloved uncle Adam, who unexpectedly died in his sleep almost a year ago. As the nightmares grow increasingly disturbing, Will comes to believe that his uncle's death may have been suspicious - and he begins investigating. Meanwhile, his best friend Ender is becoming concerned about her brilliant, troubled twin Magda, who has a top-secret intelligence role. When Magda disappears, Will is drawn into a web bigger than he can imagine. If he and his friends are to survive, he must navigate his way out of the treacherous dreamscape while staying safe in the waking world.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Isobelle Carmody about why the city of Canberra became the setting for 'Comes the Night', why dreams can be the catalyst for action in the real world, and why it was important to introduce a political dimension into the story.

Swimming Sydney is a tale of 52 swims in and around Sydney that take place over a calendar year. From Palm Beach to Cronulla, Mount Druitt to Bondi, Chris Baker swims at iconic beaches, municipal pools, harbour baths, tidal rock pools, bushland lakes and a backyard pool. Taking his weekly plunges, Baker reflects on friendship, history and family, and how swimming can help us better understand ourselves.

Swimming Sydney is a valentine to the beautiful obsession of swimming in the world’s most beautiful city. It’s a book for everyone who loves swimming, who loves Sydney, and who understands that storytelling is the best way to navigate life’s emotional currents.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Chris Baker about what swimming means to him, how swimming connects us to people, place, community and history, and why his favourite swim is a place of memory and remembrance.

A controversial entrepreneur is murdered in a remote mountain valley, but this is no ordinary case. Ivan and Nell are soon contending with cowboy lawyers, conmen, bullion thieves and grave robbers. But it's when Nell discovers the victim is a close blood relative that the past begins to take on a looming significance.

What did take place in The Valley all those years ago? What was Nell's mother doing there, and what was her connection to troubled young police officer Simmons Burnside? And why do the police hierarchy insist Ivan and Nell stay with the case despite an obvious conflict of interest?

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Chris Hammer about how his early non-fiction became the foundation for his crime thrillers, how his landscapes in rural Australia give rise to his characters and plots, and why small towns are great places for setting crime fiction.

When Mulanyin meets the beautiful Nita in Edenglassie, their saltwater people still outnumber the British. As colonial unrest peaks, Mulanyin dreams of taking his bride home to Yugambeh Country, but his plans for independence collide with white justice. Two centuries later, fiery activist Winona meets Dr Johnny. Together they care for obstinate centenarian Granny Eddie, and sparks fly, but not always in the right direction. What nobody knows is how far the legacies of the past will reach into their modern lives.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Melissa Lucashenko about what historical fiction stories can they tell us about our past and our present, the sources Melissa draws on to create her carefully drawn characters, and the hope she harbours for the future of First Nations storytelling and the nation as a whole.

Royal Blue is a royal racing pigeon from a long line of champions. Every morning he wakes in his comfortable loft at Sandringham House, eats the very best seeds and spends the day training with his best friend to be the fastest and strongest pigeon in Britain.

But there’s a war going on, and things are changing. Then one day the King himself comes to the loft and chooses Blue for a very special assignment. As Blue goes on missions, helping with rescues, carrying secret messages and facing dangers he never could have imagined, one thing will become clear: never underestimate a pigeon.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Beverley McWilliams about how she came to know so much about pigeons, why telling s story from a pigeon's point of view was so much fun, and how her love of history helps her create great stories for children.