Carrie Tiffany on her powerful exploration of dementia in the novella. 'The Lady With The Dog'
An elderly couple are driving to the pound. At last, the old lady is getting a dog. The dog is driven through a gate in the fence to its new home. It goes to sleep in front of the black stove, but when it wakes, the old lady is confused. Doesn’t she already have a dog? The old lady slips a pair of pantyhose through the dog’s collar and walks it along the fence. For some reason the gate has disappeared. In the dog’s new home objects are uncoupling from their meaning. Is the dog still a dog? When the gate opens for the very last time will the dog go through?
With whimsical drawings from artist Noel McKenna, The Lady with the Dog is a homage to the exquisite sadness of Chekhov’s famous short story. A masterful novella about the importance of animals in language and life.
In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Carrie Tiffany about the relationship between her story and Anton Chekhov's short story of the same name, how Carrie managed to get inside the head of an Alzheimer's sufferer, and how those muddled conversations with her mother became the foundation of her prose in The Lady with the Dog
15 Sept 2026
Matt Nable on his testosterone-fuelled high stakes crime-thriller, 'Mire'
They say your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. For Dan Milligan it isn't his life ... it's memories of his dad. Dan has spent his whole life chasing something. Fast cars, leggy blondes, the rush of making a lot of money and the cocaine high to celebrate. But as the stock market plummets in 1987, his world comes crashing down.
A new life on the South Coast isn't too bad. Mowing lawns is good, honest work. Most days. But other days, he tells himself he'll get back in the game. He'll get his head together, get his mojo back and master the market again. He just needs some luck. Then one day ... his luck changes. And suddenly he has a choice. Dan has no idea what he could unleash on his life, himself and his family. Or how far he will go to find a way back.
In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Matt Nable about storytelling from the gritty end of town, how his characters are shaped by research into real world crime , and the distinct and separate creative worlds of screen and page.
1 Sept 2026
Dr Norman Swan on 'The Brain Cliff' and how to stay away from the edge
What many of us fear, especially as we hit our forties and fifties, is not being as quick of mind. Not remembering as well as we used to. By our 60s and 70s we worry there's nothing we can do and that we are falling helplessly into an abyss which leads to dementia.
Dr Norman Swan, one of Australia's most trusted doctors, shows us that we've been thinking about brain ageing the wrong way. It doesn't need to be about decline and deficit. It's about how to help our brains adapt, become resilient and maintain cognitive function - and it's much more than what we eat, how we exercise or our genes.
Dr Swan has interviewed people from around the world in their 90s and 100s who still have remarkable cognitive function. These cognitive super-agers have very different life stories, but it turns out that underneath they're pretty much the same, with lessons that will help us all in our 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond.
In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Dr Norman Swan about why the changes in the brain as we age are more about adaptation than decline, why our genetic make-up isn't as influential on our brain health as we might think, and how the lifestyle choices we make contribute to our brain health.
Who has been a guest on Good Reading Podcast
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Olivia Purvis
Belinda Lyons Lee
Kaarina Parker
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