Good Reading Podcast

Good Reading Magazine
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Book talk and author interviews aimed at helping you discover your next favourite read, presented by Good Reading Magazine.

  1. Martin McKenzie-Murray on the shadow world of first responders in 'Sirens'

    3 DAYS AGO

    Martin McKenzie-Murray on the shadow world of first responders in 'Sirens'

    Three first responders – a paramedic, a police officer and a firefighter – are motivated by a desire to serve the community. But they are drawn to their work by more complicated impulses as well: a need for control, an acute awareness of danger, and childhood experiences they are still running from. Peter, a paramedic, served at high-profile disasters including the Port Arthur massacre and the Beaconsfield mine collapse. Despite helping countless people, he is haunted by the lives he couldn't save. Tara, a firefighter, experienced devastating loss at a young age. She found camaraderie in the fire brigade, but also confronting reminders of her past. Brett, a police officer, survived childhood neglect and abuse. Policing offered a way to impose order, but it eventually forced him to question his rigid moral view of the world. In telling their stories, Martin McKenzie-Murray draws on his own experience and his research into trauma and recovery to ask profound questions about human motivation and survival. What draws people to these intense professions, and how does their work reshape them? And what happens when their carefully built walls between past and present, personal and professional, start to crumble? In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Martin McKenzie-Murray about why we need know about the experiences of first responders, why it is a vocation and not just a job, and reasons for the reluctance to seek treatment for the PTSD that many first responders suffer from.

    30 min
  2. Luke Taylor on Peter Marralwanga, Painter of the Djang of Western Arnhem Land

    3 APR

    Luke Taylor on Peter Marralwanga, Painter of the Djang of Western Arnhem Land

    Peter Marralwanga (1916–1987) was a leading figure in one of the great art practices of the world. He grew up in western Arnhem Land surrounded by artists painting in rock shelters and he learned to paint this way himself. The subjects of his paintings were the Djang who made his country and placed the spirits of people within it. Marralwanga’s story highlights the way bark painting became important as a way of evading assimilation policies rife within Northern Territory towns. Marralwanga established an outstation at Marrkolidjban where he could teach his children how to properly care for Ancestral lands, with part of this care involving a knowledge of how to paint. As a senior person who had travelled widely in his youth, and gained extensive ceremonial knowledge, Marralwanga was highly influential among a broad group of painters. Ivan Namirrkki, a painter of note and Peter Marralwanga’s son, has provided here his own account of his father’s life. This book tracks Marralwanga’s life of learning about country and conveys the religious meaning of numerous major works, offering outsiders a richer understanding and appreciation of Arnhem Land art. It also shows the crucial role of individuals working for the community arts cooperative Maningrida Arts and Culture in facilitating Marralwanga’s rise to recognition as a major Australian and world artist. In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Luke Taylor about the tradition of Aboriginal bark painting that Peter Marralwanga drew from, the depth of knowledge of Aboriginal culture and ceremony that he brought to his paintings, and the political dimension to Marralwanga's work and its role in the developing land rights movement of the 1960s and 70s in Australia.

    25 min
  3. Jane Messer on her compelling memoir, 'Raven Mother: War, family and inheritance'

    30 MAR

    Jane Messer on her compelling memoir, 'Raven Mother: War, family and inheritance'

    In Raven Mother, Jane Messer weaves together her Jewish family’s tragic story – stretching back and forth between Berlin, Israel, Palestine, Melbourne and Sydney. Messer retraces the steps of her Jewish grandmother Bella, as she tries to understand her life in pre-war Berlin and Mandate Palestine, to post-war Melbourne where she didn’t survive the surviving, and why her father was abandoned in England before the war. In this powerful, beautifully written and insightful book, Messer spends time in Berlin, Israel and Palestine and grapples with the effects of nationalism, both historical and contemporary. Along the way, she speaks with historians, activists, refugees and scholars, and constantly to her beloved father. In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Jane Messer about the origins of the old German term, 'Rabenmutter', the city of Berlin under the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich, and what she discovered about her grandmother Bella along the way.

    27 min
  4. Theresa Miller on stepping up to the microphone and making an impact in 'Speak Up'

    16 MAR

    Theresa Miller on stepping up to the microphone and making an impact in 'Speak Up'

    Theresa Miller has spent decades working as a journalist and now media trainer, coaching people across all industries – from CEOs and academics to climate campaigners, entrepreneurs and artists – to communicate confidently, clearly and concisely. In Speak Up, she shows you how to successfully share your expertise and experience with an audience – whether it’s creating an inspiring work presentation or media release, blitzing a job interview or nailing your message on a podcast, panel, TV or radio interview. In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Theresa Miller about why the demand for public speaking is bigger than ever, why being an expert in your field is not enough to get your message across, and why preparation and presentation skills are fundamental to good communication.

    28 min
  5. Vikki Petraitis on a forty-year-old true crime mystery, 'The Vanishing of Vivienne Cameron'

    11 FEB

    Vikki Petraitis on a forty-year-old true crime mystery, 'The Vanishing of Vivienne Cameron'

    In 1986 on Phillip Island, a young woman called Beth Barnard was savagely murdered and her boyfriend’s wife, Vivienne Cameron, went missing. The police immediately jumped to what they thought was the obvious conclusion: in a jealous rage, Vivienne had killed Beth and then herself. Vivienne’s body was never found. But Vikki Petraitis wasn’t convinced. The official line didn’t explain all the evidence, and it certainly didn’t seem like the behaviour of a mother with two small boys. Fascinated by both the case and the bias it revealed in investigators, Petraitis wrote her first true-crime book about the murder, with Paul Daley, and decades later made a podcast on the case. Both brought new evidence and testimony to light, and asked questions that were not asked at the time. To mark the fortieth anniversary of Beth’s murder and Vivienne’s vanishing, Petraitis brings together all her discoveries and true-crime experience in a brilliant forensic investigation into what happened all those years ago, and why. In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Vikki Petraitis about why she has returned to this forty-year-old cold case, about her insights into the Philip island community, and why she is not convinced that the police investigation had reached a reasonable conclusion.

    28 min
  6. Debra Dank on family, culture, connection and the power of memory in 'Ankami'

    14 JAN

    Debra Dank on family, culture, connection and the power of memory in 'Ankami'

    Debra Dank had long been desperate to paint a fuller picture of her family, to add flesh to the name-bones and the few precious stories she possessed. Debra had been aware of her father's five siblings, some of whom had died before she could come to know them, but there were always whispers and gaps and silences. Her parents had experiences that affected how Debra grew up, but hers seemed to be one of the very few Aboriginal families who had escaped having children stolen, who had viewed this horror from a seemingly safer distance. What Debra discovered would shatter everything she thought she knew about her family and her past. The information she uncovered revealed that her paternal grandmother had given birth to ten children. Four had been taken from her. Ankami is written from the perspective of those left behind, those who search always for the faces of stolen and lost Aboriginal children, now known only through a few cruel, thoughtless words written by a violent pastoral manager and a paternalistic colonial administrator, a footnote in a yellowed letter. In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Debra Dank about the culture of silence she faced in uncovering her family history, the memories she relied on to tell this story and those she was compelled to imagine in the absence of the family she never knew, and the inadequacy of Australian standard english in describing, expressing and communicating Aboriginal culture and the words she invents to address that problem.

    37 min
  7. Vicki Bennett on her story of love, war, and inter-generational healing, 'The Letters'

    23/11/2025

    Vicki Bennett on her story of love, war, and inter-generational healing, 'The Letters'

    When rebellious Ruby is bequeathed her late grandfather’s personal letters, she is pulled from peacetime 1973 Australia, to 1917 World War 1 France. Without identification or any way home, she sets out to right a wrong that has broken her family for generations. She meets her young grandfather, an Australian soldier, who has a secret family – a French wife and daughter. Ruby is the only person who knows the true danger they are in, and sets out to rewrite her family’s past. A local resistance fighter Henri, with secrets of his own, is the only person who can help her. As they navigate dangerous terrain, Ruby is torn between the love of this mysterious hero, and the life she left behind. In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Vicki Bennett about the enduring power of the hand-written letter, how the letter can facilitate communication across time and generations, and her deep personal and family connection to this story.

    18 min
  8. Chris Blake on his crime thriller set on New Zealand's wild west coast, 'Softly Calls the Devil'

    23/11/2025

    Chris Blake on his crime thriller set on New Zealand's wild west coast, 'Softly Calls the Devil'

    Things are going well for Matt Buchanan. After some hard times, life is peaceful as sole-charge constable for the small, isolated settlement of Haast on New Zealand's wild West Coast. He's made friends among the locals, won their trust. He keeps their little world safe. And he's working in spectacular surroundings - the fierce Tasman Sea, the dense beech forest, the dark, cold swamps, the snowy Southern Alps. But then his much-loved predecessor, Gus, is discovered beside a river with a bullet through his head. He'd been looking into a disturbing murder-suicide from 1978: the parents' bodies were found, but not their daughter's. Suspecting a darker truth, Matt is certain the answers can't be too far away in this close-knit community. How does former forest service ranger Liam, with his gang links, fit into the story? What about Joe, the alcoholic hermit whose knowledge and intelligence seem so at odds with his appearance and lifestyle? In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Chris Blake about the wild west coast of the South Island of New Zealand as the perfect setting for a dark and bloody crime thriller, how Senior Constable Matt Buchanan might have has escaped his demons, and the challenges for Chris Blake as both a serving police officer and an award-winning novelist.

    19 min
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4.6
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About

Book talk and author interviews aimed at helping you discover your next favourite read, presented by Good Reading Magazine.

Information

  • Creator
    Good Reading Magazine
  • Years Active
    2018 - 2026
  • Episodes
    390
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © All rights reserved
  • Show Website
    Good Reading Podcast

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