Adam Courtenay was in conversation with Alex Sloan on his moving memoir My Father Bryce. Dynamic, complex, driven: Bryce Courtenay was all of these as well as one of Australia's most beloved authors. To his son Adam, he was larger than life, mercurial, and impossible to know completely. In this moving, unforgettable memoir, Adam searches for the real Bryce.

Liz Cameron was in conversation with Alex Sloan on her new book Cult Bride How I Was Brainwashed – and How I Broke Free, ‘an intriguing and powerful memoir,’ in which Liz asks how are people like you and me brainwashed into cults? As an 18 year-old on her gap year in Canberra, Liz is approached at a shopping centre by a woman who asks her survey questions about her Christian faith. Liz is slowly brought into her small, friendly church community – but little does she know that her new ‘friends’ are members of the South Korean cult Providence, which currently operates in more than 70 countries. This is the story of how Liz endured mind-control techniques and a visit to the cult’s convicted serial rapist leader in prison and came out the other side alive. She takes us behind the scenes to show us how cults operate in plain sight – and how we can unpick the systems that enable them to prey on vulnerable people. This powerful, candid memoir tells one woman’s extraordinary story of how she was broken down by a secretive, predatory cult – and how she broke free and remade her life. Pantera publisher, Tom Langshaw, has stated, ‘Liz tells her story with grace and dignity, cleverly supported by research into cult operations and advocacy for policy change. Her memoir is a remarkable personal story of survival with a deeper and more purposeful meaning, exploring the extremes of coercive control and the cults that operate in plain sight’. Liz Cameron grew up in fundamentalist Christianity and was brainwashed into the JMS cult at age 18 in 2011. Since escaping in 2013, she's worked on slowly rebuilding her life while also helping to raise awareness of cults and assist in deprogramming other cult victims. She now resides in Canberra and balances full-time professional work with cult awareness and advocacy, while also studying a psychology degree. In 2023, after flying to South Korea to film the documentary The Cult Next Door for Channel 7's Spotlight program, Liz's public profile grew as she began talking honestly on social media about the insidious nature of cults, cult psychology, and deprogramming. Alex Sloan AM is an award winning journalist, panellist, MC and commentator whose extensive media career spans 30 years, including 27 years with ABC Radio. Alex is a Director and Deputy Chair of Australia's think-tank, The Australia Institute and a Director of The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust. In 2017 Alex was named ACT Citizen of the Year and in 2019 Alex was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for her significant service to the community of Canberra, and to the broadcast media as a radio presenter.

Katherine Biber was in conversation with Kate Fullagar on her new book, The Last Outlaws, a gripping work of historical true crime and a richly revealing examination of our nation at its birth. Brilliantly reconstructed from contemporary narratives, it's The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith meets Killing for Country. In the winter of 1900, Wiradjuri man Jimmy Governor and his brother Joe murdered nine people across New South Wales, in a rampage that caused panic in the colony on the cusp of nationhood. Triggered, it seems, by a racist incident, they killed men, women and children, evading a vast manhunt until they were eventually captured. Joe was shot in the open; Jimmy survived to be put on trial. Thus the last man to be outlawed in the colony was hanged in the new nation, meeting his end in Darlinghurst Gaol as the Federation decorations were taken down. The brothers’ names still resonate, partly due to Thomas Keneally’s novel The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith and Fred Schepisi’s subsequent film, but their story has remained distorted and obscure. Undertaken with the co-operation of the Governors’ descendants, Katherine Biber’s compelling reconstruction of events – from the murders themselves to Jimmy’s eventual execution – brings this extraordinary story back to life. In doing so it sheds fresh, vivid light on the country that inspired and reacted to the murders. Not only did many of the lawyers and politicians involved also play key roles in Federation, but the case revealed in microcosm the psychology of the nascent nation: its attitudes to land and race; its anxiety about a wider First Nations insurrection; its obsession with paperwork and the emerging ‘sciences’ of neuroanatomy and criminology; its nepotism, religiosity, sweeping police powers and sensationalist media. More powerfully than the story of Ned Kelly or the Anzacs, the fate of Jimmy Governor illuminates the origin story of the Australian nation. Populated by a cast of extraordinary characters and compelling detail, The Last Outlaws brings the energy of true crime into the telling of history, offering an electric new understanding of both our past and our present Katherine Biber, Distinguished Professor of Law at UTS, is a legal scholar, criminologist and historian. Her podcast The Last Outlaws won the NSW Premier’s History Award (2022, Digital History); Australian Podcast Awards (2022, Podcast of the Year, overall winner; 2022 History Podcast of the Year); Australian Legal Research Award (2022, non-traditional research award); and was a finalist in the Webby Awards (2023, Best Limited Series). Katherine is co-Editor in Chief of the international journal Crime, Media, Culture and serves on the Australian Research Council College of Experts. Professor Kate Fullagar is an historian and award-winning author at the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University. She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and Vice President of the Australian Historical Association. She is the author of Phillip and Bennelong: A History Unravelled  ; The Warrior, the Voyager, and the Artist: Three Lives in an Age of Empire and The Savage Visit. New World People and Imperial Popular Culture. The vote of thanks was given by Dr Ben Silverstein, Lecturer in Indigenous Studies. ANU

Sam Guthrie was in conversation with Mark Kenny on his gripping new espionage thriller and debut novel, The Peak. Written with an extraordinary insider knowledge of China, the realities of global power and the inner dealings of the Australian Government, The Peak weaves an intriguing story of friendship, love and betrayal. Political hatchet man Charlie will do anything to protect Sebastian, Australian government minister and his best friend since their brutal private school days. Rising to power and prominence through international diplomatic postings and then the rough and tumble of Australian politics, they are as close as brothers - or so Charlie thinks - while both keep the secret that lies at the very heart of their relationship - a secret that in one way or another will change the world. But then a single phrase in Mandarin is spoken in Sebastian's ear and he does the unthinkable. As Charlie tries to piece it all together - from their youth spent in Hong Kong to the recent past in Beijing and Washington - things in the outside world start to fall apart too. Planes can't land, the phone lines go down and the power is out. Then the secret intelligence services comes knocking. Charlie wonders, what the hell did Sebastian do? From the jostling streets of Hong Kong to Beijing's shadowy halls of power and the backstabbing Machiavellian workings of Parliament House in Canberra. The Peak combines the authenticity and moral complexity of a Le Carre novel and the narrative power of an Australian Robert Harris. 'Sam Guthrie is a born writer - this is a cracking thriller' Dervla McTiernan Prior to publishing his first novel, The Peak, Sam Guthrie had a 25 year career in international relations serving as a trade envoy to China, an Asia Pacific corporate affairs adviser and political lobbyist and a senior government official. He has worked extensively across Europe, the US and Asia, and has spent close to a decade living and working in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Prague. He has a master's degree in international relations. He splits his time between Canberra and Sydney. Professor Mark Kenny is Director of the Australian Studies Institute at ANU, where he hosts the popular podcast series 'Democracy Sausage'. Mark is the Canberra Times political analyst and a regular on the ABC's Insiders, and countless broadcast programs across the country. The vote of thanks wasThePeak given by Allan Behm, Senior Advisor, International & Security Affairs Program. The Australia Institute

Graeme Turner was in conversation with Frank Bongiorno on his new book Broken: Universities, Politics and the Public Good. A strong higher education system is fundamental to civil society. The building of knowledge and the dissemination of information is vital to the proper functioning of our democracy. At the economic level, higher education is in the top three of our export industries; international students have become central to the hospitality, retail and agricultural economies; and the country desperately needs well-trained, knowledgeable citizens to shore up its future. Yet, in February 2024, a detailed review of higher education in this country concluded that the system is broken and urgently needs fixing. The problems that afflict it are legion, including over-investment in international enrolment, an epidemic of casualisation and the burning out of a generation of academics, culture wars over the content and orientation of university research and teaching, the lack of sectoral coordination around the national interest, and the consequences of decades of funding cuts. In Broken, Graeme Turner provides a reality check for those who imagine the academic life is one of privilege and leisure, laying bare the enormous challenges and lack of hope experienced by many in academia. He unearths the foundations of this crisis, then explains how the solution lies in an overhaul of the one-size-fits-all approach to university funding, the establishment of genuine full-time career paths, and the formation of an independent body to ensure our university system serves the national interest in both teaching and research, rather than the ferocious competitiveness of the marketplace. Above all, we need to jettison the current economic focus on education, and re-embrace the idea that higher learning is a fundamental public good – and should be funded as such. Graeme Turner AO is Emeritus Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Queensland. He has published 30 books and his work has been translated into eleven languages. He has served as President of the Academy of the Humanities, is a former Federation Fellow, and is the only humanities scholar to have served two successive terms as a member of the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council. He has had extensive engagement with higher education policy, research assessment and commentary on the sector, including prominent roles with the Australian Research Council, the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy, and the Learned Academies. He co-authored the landmark 2014 study of the state of the humanities, creative arts and social sciences disciplines in Australia, Mapping HASS. His 'state of the nation' book, The Shrinking Nation, was published in 2023. Frank Bongiorno AM, Professor of History ANU, is currently President of the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, the Australian Academy of the Humanities and a Whitlam Institute Distinguished Fellow at Western Sydney University. His most recent book is Dreamers and Schemers: A Political History of Australia. Allan Behm, Senior advisor, International & Security Affairs Program at the Australia Institute, will give the vote of thanks

Two times Gold Dagger winning, and twice Edgar short-listed author, Michael Robotham was in conversation with Chris Hammer on Michael's new PC Phil McCarthy crime fiction novel The White Crow. *This podcast contains explicit language. Listener discretion is advised.

Journalist and recipient of the 2024 Press Freedom Award, Cheng Lei was in conversation with Michael Hertel on her new book Cheng Lei: A Memoir of Freedom, the extraordinary true story of journalist Cheng Lei whose life was abruptly transformed when she was detained in China on false charges of espionage. Harrowing, fierce and often darkly humorous.

Toby Walsh was in conversation with Andrew Leigh on his new book The Shortest History of AI, everything you need to know about the origins and future of artificial intelligence through the examination of six key ideas.

Internationally acclaimed epidemiologist Raina MacIntyre was in conversation with Sanjaya Senanayake on her new book Vaccine Nation Science, reason and the threat to 200 years of progress, a gripping journey through the past, present and future of vaccines.

Marcel Dirsus was in conversation with Allan Behm on his book How Tyrants Fall: And How Nations Survive.