Good Weekend Talks

On the cusp of 65, Bonnie Garmus published her debut novel Lessons in Chemistry. It was a global sensation and the copywriter, who had a previous manuscript rejected by publishers 98 times, sold almost 10 million copies and enjoyed being co-executive producer when it was made into an eight-part streaming hit starring Brie Larson. 

Today, Garmus talks about her new novel Peck & Peck, which explores – through a delight...

It's not too much of an overstatement to say that for over 30 years, Michael Pollan's books have helped reshape conversations about industrial food systems, animal consciousness and our obligations to other living things.

His new book, A World Appears, is about plant sentience – an immersive exploration of how plants exhibit thinking and memory-like behaviours, respond to physical threats, favour their own species and su...

Melbourne-born Suzie Miller's background as a lawyer has influenced the 40-odd plays she has written, many of which feature strong social-justice themes. Best known among those works are the award-winning Prima Facie, which has been staged in Sydney, Melbourne and London, and Inter Alia, which premiered in London last year and opens on Broadway in November.
In Miller's new play, Strong is the New Pretty, she tells the story of t...

Australians know Judith Lucy as the comedian with a sardonic wit and no-fear attitude to mining her personal life, from her unconventional upbringing and numerous disastrous relationships, to drinking too much and the indignities of ageing.

For over three decades, life was work for Lucy – until it wasn't. In 2023, she had a burnout, and she's turned her discoveries from that experience into a book about deep exhaustion.

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At just 19, Alexa Leary was a champion triathlete when she suffered a severe traumatic brain injury in an horrific cycling accident. She wasn't expected to survive the crash, but she beat the odds, learning to walk, talk and live again – even jumping back in the pool with renewed purpose, winning two gold medals and one silver at the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris. In this episode of Good Weekend Talks, Leary talks to Konrad ...

Bram Connolly is the type of person you want as a neighbour if there's ever a crisis or an emergency on your street.
Connolly spent 20 years in the Australian special forces navigating the world's most dangerous landscapes, from Afghanistan to Somalia, so he knows how to stay cool in the heat of battle – and in unplanned moments in daily civilian life.
The founder of Hindsight Leade...

Australian journalist Jonathan Swan, a White House reporter for The New York Times, is perhaps best known for his hard-hitting interviews with US President Donald Trump. Most famous was his August 2020 exchange with Trump, in which Swan's real-time fact-checking (and incredulous facial expressions) while listening to the president's muddled assertions earned the then 35-year-old reporter an Emmy award. Now Swan has teamed up w...

Think of Myf Warhurst and the word “bubbly” might spring to mind. With everything the radio and TV personality does – from Spicks and Specks to the Eurovision Song Contest or her documentary, The Truth about Menopause – Warhurst is known as the ray of sunshine, the nice one (she’s even the voice of Aunt Trixie, and Indy’s Mum, on Bluey). But she’s no longer playing nice. In a new book, she&...

George Megalogenis is known as a big thinker about Australian politics and culture, searching beyond the noise for what’s really going on in our country. He has four decades' experience in the media, including time in the parliamentary press gallery. In his new book, Three Shocks: Who We Are Becoming in the 21st Century, he looks at the seismic changes underway that will influence all of us in the coming decades. He joins Goo...

Maria Ressa is one of the most celebrated journalists in the world. Born in Manila in 1963, she moved with her family to the US, studying at Princeton University before returning to the Philippines to forge a career covering the growth of terrorism in South East Asia. In 2012, she co-founded online news site Rappler, distinguishing herself as a fearless defender of freedom of expression while standing up to an authoritarian regime ...

Anthony LaPaglia is best known to audiences for a host of big- and small-screen roles, including films such as Looking for Alibrandi, Lantana and Balibo and US TV shows including Without a Trace.

But the 67-year-old is also no stranger to the stage, having once won a Tony for his performance in the Arthur Miller play, A View from the Bridge.

He’s back in Australia right now to front another Miller play – one the gr...

Virginia Giuffre was fearless in taking down some of the world’s most powerful people. As Jeffrey Epstein’s most prominent victim, she helped expose his crimes and hold his friends to account, including the man formerly known as Prince Andrew. But despite her heroic battle in the most notorious sex trafficking case of the 21st century, few knew about one of her toughest fights. It was one she fought privately at home in...

Nothing exposes the flaws of a justice system more than the wrongful conviction of an innocent person for murder. Adelaide man Henry Keogh languished in prison for two decades after being wrongfully convicted of his fiancée’s drowning, while Andrew Mallard – a vulnerable, troubled outsider – had his life irrevocably shattered when he was wrongly convicted of the 1994 murder of Pamela Lawrence in Perth. Neil Mercer...

Arj Barker has been a fixture on the local comedy scene for decades, headlining our comedy festivals and turning up on shows including Thank God You’re Here and Spicks and Specks. But the San Francisco-born stand-up began telling jokes at open mic nights in 1989, before appearances on American late night TV for Conan O’Brien, Jay Leno, and David Letterman - not to mention a memorable turn on the hit sitcom Flight of the...

Starting a business is one thing, running it successfully is another – but doing it with your spouse and four kids is a different kettle of fish. Janine Allis has done all of the above, after founding Boost Juice as a single store in the 2000s and growing it into a global empire. She’s since become one of the most sought-after entrepreneurs in the country and a regular on small screens, both as a judge on Shark Tank and...

Peter Singer, often called the world's most influential philosopher, is turning 80, and he's returned home to Melbourne too, after almost 25 years as a professor of bioethics at Princeton University.
Singer's practical ethics has had a huge impact and caused controversy across issues as diverse as the rights of animals, voluntary euthanasia and abortion, freedom of speech, and our moral obligation to help thos...

Rob de Castella, otherwise known as “Deeks” - or, to his opponents, “Tree”, due to his sturdy limbs and unshiftable calm - is a two-time Commonwealth Games gold medal winner and Australian running royalty. He joins Good Weekend Talks to chat about his Indigenous Marathon Project, in which he takes a group of Indigenous people from around the country every year and signs them up for a rigorous training a...

Australian author and intellectual Anna Funder specialises in telling the stories of people forgotten or ignored by official histories. She began her writing career with Stasiland, detailing the state surveillance of the people of the former East Germany, which was followed by her prize-winning novel, All That I Am, telling the previously untold story of early resisters to the Nazis. In her most recent work, Wifedom, Funder shifted...

Picture this: a crumbling Italian mansion in the Tuscan hills, an eccentric aristocrat, sun-soaked lunches, too much wine and a house humming with secrets. That’s the delightful world into which we’re heading today as we talk to writer Andrew Sean Greer, whose new novel, Villa Coco, is loosely inspired by his own time at an Italian estate around a famous Baroness. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less also joins us ...