Good Reading Podcast

Usually when a friend is dying, there’s not much you can do. But what if there was?
James O’Loghlin’s best friend at university was Jum Wallner, but once careers and kids came along, they drifted apart. That was, until the day Jum felt a pain in his side and remembered he had grown up in a house filled with ‘Mr Fluffy’ asbestos insulation. Nearly everyone who contracts an asbestos disease gets it from their work and is entitled to compensation or financial support. Jum discovered that if you got one from your home, tough luck. You were on your own. Before he died, Jum wanted to change that.

James leapt at the chance to help him. But with zero lobbying experience, how were they going to persuade the ACT Labor Government and the Federal Liberal Government to work together to help the victims of the 1000 ‘Mr Fluffy’ houses? In the middle of Covid, how would they attract national media attention? Most importantly, as Jum’s illness worsened, could they get it done in time?
This is a story about amateurs figuring out how to influence government, how friendship can drift and then be found again, and how tragedy can make it clear what really matters.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to James O'Loghlin about the changing contours of friendship as we move through life, how he came to be an activist for the victims of Canberra's 'Mr Fluffy' houses, and how to to prepare for final conversations with dying friends.

Australia is a country celebrated for its wildlife, yet native species are in crisis. In the last 200 years, Australia has lost more biodiversity than any other developed nation.
In this book, award-winning science writer Justine E. Hausheer encounters pygmy possums that live high in the Snowy Mountains, hears the booming calls of bitterns from their adopted home in the Riverina’s rice fields, crouches after dark in the spinifex grasslands listening for the elusive night parrot and meets adorable fat-tailed dunnarts who might hold the answers to reviving the Tasmanian tiger. The Vanishing Wild immerses us in the harsh reality of the extinction crisis – and shows us the future of conservation and what can be done to save Australia’s native species.
In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Justine Haushseer about the ever-growing list of endangered species from the iconic koala to the little known pygmy blue tongue lizard, the ethical challenges of de-extinction technologies and... what exactly are the Cane Toad Olympics?

After suffering a loss, Janine and her husband, Kamal, need a fresh start. They leave their family and everything they know in Manchester and move to Bamblethorpe, a picturesque Lancashire village where they expect nothing but peace and quiet. It’ll be just what Janine, a thriller writer, needs to work on her next manuscript.

But the peace of their new village life is disrupted when longtime local Alexa Clarke goes missing. Did she leave her husband, like some people suspect? Or is there credibility to the rumours that something more nefarious has happened to Alexa?

Frozen by writer’s block, Janine stumbles into investigating Alexa’s disappearance, and the more she discovers about Alexa’s life, the more complicated things become. Nothing is as it seems, and Janine begins to realise that there are disturbing parallels between Alexa’s life and her own. What starts as curious procrastination quickly spirals into a tangled web of secrets, lies and a truth Janine may not be ready to face … if she survives.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Jess Kitching about the accidental merging of genres in her writing, how a tree change to a quiet English village comes with hidden dangers, and how grief and loss changes lives.

For Amy, being a doctor was supposed to mean winning at life. Helping people. Saving lives. Having a secure job. Earning good money. Tick, tick, tick, tick. But now, in her second year in a city hospital the reality is a world away from Amy's med school dreams. She is finding out that people don't always want to be 'helped', the pay barely covers rent, her hours are ridiculous, her favourite patients are getting sicker, and her surgical trainee boyfriend has recently gone shy on proposing.

What Amy does have are the friendships forged by dealing with recalcitrant patients, endless nightshifts, and crying in the emergency department bathrooms. And a belief that maybe, underneath it all, it's a job that's still worth doing.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Kerry Jewell about giving the reader the complete hospital/medical training experience, why the idea of being a doctor isn't necessarily the reality, and how cynicism, sarcasm and black humour are all part of the job.

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.