Shows
Gleetalks from Gleebooks50th Birthday Poetry SpecialIn this special episode of Gleetalks, we celebrate not only our 50th birthday this year since Gleebooks was founded in 1975, but our equally long association with poets and poetry. One of our very first book launches was for Lee Cataldi’s poetry collection Invitation to a Marxist Lesbian Party. Since then, we’ve proudly hosted hundreds of poetry launches and readings with some of Australia’s best and best-known poets.To celebrate our 50th, patron Liz Allen hosted a very special evening of poetry with poets Chris AndrewsJudith BeveridgePeter BoylePam BrownJoanne BurnsLaurie DugganJane GibianDebbie LimGreg McLaren and Miroslav Sandev
2025-12-241h 02
Gleetalks from GleebooksGavin Fang & Tracey Kirkland - Age of Doubt: Building Trust in a World of DisinformationToday, trust seems harder to find than ever before. It’s hardly surprising we feel that way. Our politics is polarised, our online world is awash with misinformation, and we’ve lost faith in our bedrock institutions. Yet, without trust, we cannot work together to solve the big problems we face.But there is a way back. A way to rediscover trust in our leaders and institutions. A way to tackle the doubt.Gavin Fang – ABC Editorial Director – and Tracey Kirkland – the ABC’s Continuous News Editor – talk to author and broadcaster Richard Glover about how, if we are t...
2025-12-1730 min
Gleetalks from GleebooksEarthquake: The election that shook AustraliaWhen the Coalition government was overthrown in 2022 after nine years in office, it was tempting to portray the loss as merely a personal repudiation of Scott Morrison. Then, when opposition leader Peter Dutton torpedoed the Voice referendum in 2023, his popularity rocketed as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's nose dived. That was when, according to former political staffer and now commentator Niki Savva, the Coalition thought it had the election in the bag.But Niki had noticed the ground shifting – the emergence of the teal independents and the long-term threat they represented to the Liberals and...
2025-12-1042 min
Gleetalks from GleebooksKumi Taguchi - The Good DaughterGrowing up, journalist and presenter Kumi Taguchi thought her father was just difficult: reserved to the point of silence, obsessively frugal, and – after her parents’ divorce – almost entirely absent. Still, when her father died, she was far away and Kumi’s feelings about him – and her own heritage – remained tangled.But just because a parent has gone doesn’t mean they’re absent. Over time Kumi came to understand more about what made her father as he was, including his harrowing experiences as a child in wartime Japan and, above all, the culture she both loved and felt bu...
2025-12-0353 min
Imagining The PastImagining the Past—Summer Mesclun Season—2025/26
Imagining the Past Summer Season is here. Enjoy catching up with book launch discussions featuring your favourite authors and new voices.
Death at Booroomba is Alison Booth’s ninth novel, a deeply evocative historical whodunnit. It was launched at Gleebooks in Sydney in September 2025. Published through Ventura Press, Jane Curry was the session's convener.
2025-11-2445 min
Gleetalks from GleebooksBriony Neilson - Dangers of YouthFrance at the turn of the twentieth century was deeply preoccupied with the conduct of its young people, especially juvenile offenders, who were viewed at a time of great economic distress and social turmoil as harbingers of national decline and agents of disorder. Sound familiar?Legislators and social reformers debated whether children who committed offences should be held criminally responsible or if their age should exempt them from liability. Nonetheless, others saw young people, including juvenile offenders, as victims of neglect and essential vehicles for national regeneration. In this episode of Gle...
2025-11-1934 min
Gleetalks from GleebooksJohn Lyons - A Bunker in KyivBy daytime, Ukraine is a sophisticated European country going about its business, and Kyiv seems like an enchanting city. But by night, the sirens roar, and the war begins. Acclaimed former ABC Global Affairs Editor – and now ABC News Americas Editor – John Lyons doesn’t write about geopolitics or military strategy in his evocative book A Bunker in Kyiv, published by Harper Collins Australia. Instead, he focuses on the everyday resilient civilians who are taking part in it.Lyons talks to Network Ten political correspondent Hugh Riminton and Ukrainian ambassador to Australia Vasyl Myroshnychenko about the hug...
2025-11-1252 min
History Lab35. History Lab Live: The Last OutlawsHear author and historian Katherine Biber tell the story of Jimmy and Joe Governor, Wiradjuri and Wonnarua brothers, who in 1900 went on a murder spree that killed nine people and terrified countless others. The men were pursued for three months across 3000 kilometres, taunting their hunters with clues, letters and tricks. The last men in the state to be proclaimed outlaws, their pursuit and capture fascinated and terrified a nation on the eve of its Federation.Back in 2021, History Lab published its award-winning Last Outlaws episodes (you can find them in eps 15-17) - a collaboration...
2025-11-0650 min
Gleetalks from GleebooksZeny Edwards - Painting with Stone: The Story of the Melocco BrothersDespite the swathe of destruction and demolition in recent decades, Sydney has some architectural gems: the State Library of NSW, the State Theatre, Hyde Park’s Anzac Memorial and more. And adorning these iconic buildings is the exquisite work of three Italian brothers whose ornate and beautiful mosaic, terrazzo, and marble work constitutes up to 90% of Sydney’s early 20th Century marble and terrazzo work. Yet despite their monumental contributions – including the decade they spent working on the floor of St Mary’s Cathedral crypt – the legacy of the Melocco Brothers—Peter, Antonio, and Galliano—has remained lar...
2025-11-0559 min
Gleetalks from GleebooksNick Kaldas - Behind the BadgeNick Kaldas is a cop's cop. From investigating war criminals to taking down global drug operations, Kaldas has seen the worst humanity can offer. But he's also seen which human qualities can lead to greatness.An immigrant boy from Egypt who rose from beat cop to become one of the most senior police officers in Australia.In this episode of Gleetalks, Kaldas talks to former detective, author and podcaster Gary Jubelin about his memoir Behind the Badge, published by HarperCollins Australia.Like what you heard? Buy your copy here
2025-10-2934 min
Gleetalks from GleebooksJustin Narayan of Masterchef - Everything is IndianWe all love Indian food, but why aren't garam masala or tamarind as common as soy sauce and tomato paste?It’s a question answered by Masterchef winner Justin Narayan in his cookbook Everything is Indian, published by Murdoch Books, drawing on his Fijian-Indian heritage.Think: roast potatoes with masala flavours, MasterChef-certified chicken curry tacos, the best pizza ever and a cardamom-hit caramel slice.In this episode of Gleetalks, Justin takes us on a flavourful journey as he chats to food critic Nicholas Jordan. Like what you heard? Buy...
2025-10-2133 min
Fully Lit15. Fully Lit live: Gail Jones on writing at a slantExplore the poetic, philosophical, and genre-defying world of Gail Jones’s latest novel, The Name of the Sister, in this episode of Fully Lit Live. In conversation with fellow author Debra Adelaide, Jones reflects on the difference between a crime novel and a novel with a crime in it, and asks how a novel might bear witness to suffering, honouring rather than exploiting it. Jones's work - always deeply visual, filled with images that linger in the mind's eye - invites listeners to consider how literature shapes our inner worlds. In this episode, she reminds us th...
2025-10-0158 min
Big IdeasFrom Con the Fruiterer to East West 101 — the changing face of Australian TVAustralia is a multicultural country, but up until recently, when you turned on the telly, you wouldn't know it. So what role has TV played in Australia's diverse communities, on screen, behind the scenes and in the living rooms across this country, over the past 70 years?This event was recorded at Sydney's Gleebooks on Friday 11 July 2025.SpeakersKate Darian-SmithProfessorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne, President of the Academy of Social Sciences in AustraliaKyle HarveyCulture and media and social change historianSukhmani KhoranaAssociate Professor in the School of...
2025-07-3157 min
Gleetalks from GleebooksEmma Shortis - After AmericaAustralian political leaders have bent the knee for decades, placing the ANZUS treaty at the centre of the nation’s security. AUKUS has become the latest symbol of strategic solidarity. For Australia’s governments, of whatever political persuasion, America continues to define the global rules-based order.Now that the American people have elected Donald Trump as the forty-seventh president, how will his presidency affect Australia's foreign policy, trade, climate action and approach to human rights? More importantly, will Australia be able to act in its own interests, or will it simply defer to Trump’s idea of Americ...
2025-07-1048 min
Fully Lit9. Fully Lit live: the 2025 Miles Franklin AwardIn an engaging, though-provoking and moving conversation, Winnie Dunn, Julie Janson and Siang Lu - all shortlisted for the 2025 Miles Franklin Literary Award - discuss their nominated works, the ideas that shaped them, and the questions they raise about Australian life, literature and identity today, with writer and broadcaster Sunil Badami. The Miles Franklin Literary Award is Australia’s most prestigious literary prize, awarded each year to a novel of the highest literary merit that presents Australian life in any of its phases. This special episode of Fully Lit is presented by Copyright Agency Cultural Fund...
2025-07-091h 01
Big IdeasFrom vulture bone flutes to ‘organised sound’— Andrew Ford's short history of musicMusic has been around for at least as long as humans, and possibly even longer. How have forces like religion, the economy, society and technology, shaped music over time? And why, in lullabies and concert halls, songlines and streaming services, have humans always been irresistibly drawn to making it?This event was recorded at Sydney's Gleebooks.SpeakersAndrew FordHost, The Music Show, ABC Radio NationalAuthor, The Shortest History of Music, and moreAward-winning composerKirsty McCahon (host)Double bassistStrategic Relations Manager, Sydney Conservatorium of Music
2025-05-2652 min
The Bookseller's PodcastEpisode 26: 'In Service of the Book' featuring David Gaunt from Gleebooks, SydneyMark has a fireside chat with David Gaunt from Gleebooks. Turn the volume up, find somewhere quiet and listen to this mesmerising conversation from 2 doyens of our industry.
2025-05-171h 14
Gleetalks from GleebooksGeorge Megalogenis - Minority RuleAustralian politics is shifting. The two-party system was broken at the last federal election, and another minority government is a real possibility at this one. Politics-as-usual is not enough for many voters.In this timely episode of Gleetalks (Gleetalks Link) George Megalogenis traces the how and why of a political realignment in his Quarterly Essay: Minority Rule: The New Shape of Australian Politics with broadcaster and author David Marr.This is about the teals, the Greens and the Coalition. In a contest between new and old, progressive and conservative, which vision of Australia will win...
2025-04-2349 min
Finding NatureLandfall: James Bradley on Facing the Future, TodayToday’s show is with James Bradley - renowned Australian author who is returning to the show a year after releasing what was one of my favourite books of 2024 - Deep Water, Life in the Ocean. James’ books have been nominated and awarded prizes all over the country, and in 2021 he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for "service to literature as a writer’. He’s written for the Guardian, The Monthly, The Saturday Paper and The Conversation. His work is incisive and always brilliantly written, and at a time when it’s difficult to keep up or full...
2025-04-151h 19
Gleetalks from GleebooksMichael Visontay - Noble FragmentsOne hundred years ago, a New York bookseller Gabriel Wells, committed a crime against history. He broke up the world’s greatest book, the Gutenberg Bible, and sold it off in individual pages, which he marketed as Noble Fragments.Half a century later, Sydney journalist Michael Visontay stumbled upon a mysterious legal document that linked Wells to his own family and changed its destiny.In this episode of Gleetalks, Visontay talks to critic and author Caroline Baum about his hunt for those fragments, what he discovered in the arcane world of antique book collectors, and hi...
2025-04-0247 min
Gleetalks from GleebooksLauren Samuelsson A Matter of TasteSince 1933, the Australian Women’s Weekly has been Australia’s highest-selling women’s magazine. And from birthday cakes to barbecues, the Weekly taught generations of Australians what to eat and how to cook it at home.Drawing on recipes, food editorials and readers’ memories, Lauren Samuelsson’s A Matter of Taste: The Australian Women’s Weekly & Its Influence on Australian Food Culture is a celebration of the Weekly’s essential role in the development of Australian food culture.On this deliciously nostalgic episode of Gleetalks, Lauren talks to historian Professor Michelle Arrow about how the Weekly encoura...
2025-03-1833 min
Gleetalks from GleebooksMichelle de Kretser - Theory and PracticeIt’s 1986, and ‘beautiful, radical ideas’ are in the air. A young woman arrives in Melbourne. In bohemian St Kilda she meets artists, activists, students—and Kit.In her seventh novel, Theory and Practice, award-winning writer Michelle de Kretser bends fiction, essay and memoir into exhilarating new shapes making and unmaking fiction as we read and expanding our notion of what a novel can contain.In this episode of Gleetalks, she chats to Professor Elizabeth McMahon of the University of NSW about this mesmerising account of desire and jealousy, truth and shame, of theory and practice...
2025-03-0441 min
Gleetalks from GleebooksGeoff Raby - Great Game OnIn the Nineteenth Century, the Russian and British played what was dubbed the Great Game for strategic influence in Central Asia.Today, the players have changed. Combine Putin’s Ukraine folly and American isolationism and, China now has the chance to project its power globally, as the US did from the early Twentieth Century. What are the implications and consequences, especially for Australia?In this episode of Gleetalks, Australia’s former ambassador to China Geoff Raby AO talks to broadcaster Geraldine Doogue about his new book Great Game On: The Contest for Central Asia and Glob...
2025-02-1953 min
Big IdeasChopsticks or fork? — Jennifer Wong and Lin Jie Kong with Annabel CrabbAlmost every country town across Australia has a Chinese restaurant. Why is that? And what role do they play in the story of immigration and multiculturalism, as well as the life and tastebuds of regional communities? This event was recorded at Sydney's Gleebooks.SpeakersJennifer Wong Comedian, writer, tv presenter, columnist, curator, host and co-author of Chopsticks or Fork?Lin Jie Kong Producer, director, editor, co-author Chopsticks or Fork?Annabel Crabb (host) Writer and presenter, ABCFurther informationWatch Chopsticks or Fork on ABC iView
2025-01-2751 min
Gleetalks from GleebooksChris Baker - Swimming SydneyFrom Palm Beach to Cronulla, Mount Druitt to Bondi, Sydney is a city made for swimming.Over a calendar year, lifelong swimmer, educator and writer Chris Baker swam at iconic beaches, municipal pools, harbour baths, tidal rock pools, bushland lakes and a backyard pool,In this episode of Gleetalks, he talks to curator and broadcaster Michaela Kalowksi about his book Swimming Sydney: A Tale of 52 Swims, a valentine to the beautiful obsession of swimming in the world’s most beautiful city, and how storytelling is the best way to navigate life’s emotional currents.
2025-01-241h 02
Gleetalks from GleebooksRonni Salt - GunnawahThe 1970s. The era of flares, treads, Gough… and the founding of Gleebooks – but that’s another story!It was also the age of the advent of feminism, rampant police and political corruption, and the rise of drug-fuelled organised crime in Australia, where Nugan Hand, Mr Asia and Robert Trimbole became household names.In this episode of Gleetalks, investigative journalist Ronni Salt talks to Gleebooks Events Manager Sunil Badami about the intrigues and politics in her new crime thriller, Gunnawah, featuring a colourful cast of characters and gripping escapades in Trimbole’s old Riverina stomping ground.
2025-01-0838 min
Secret Life of BooksBonus Live Ep: hosts' secrets revealed and the classics stripped bare!Co-hosts Sophie and Jonty bare all in a bonus SLoB live ep! After months of rummaging through the dirty laundry of the great writers, it is only fair that we turn a critical eye back upon ourselves - and reveal the secret life of the Secret Life of Books. In this bonus episode, recorded to mark our official launch before a live audience in Sydney’s iconic Gleebooks, Sophie and Jonty get raw. After briefly discussing why we started SLoB and why the classics matter, we get down to the serious questions: which literary character do we mos...
2024-11-2230 min
Gleetalks from GleebooksDr Norelle Lickiss - On the Kindness of Strangers LauncHRenowned Australian physician and academic Dr Norelle Lickiss AO discusses her collection of essays "On the Kindness of Strangers and Other Essays: Musing on Medicine as a Human Science" (40South, 2024).Drawing on her long and acclaimed career as a doctor, teacher and scholar, these writings cover a range of topics, from the practice of medicine, to art, philosophy and death.Many of the pieces have been published elsewhere in professional journals, while others are more personal, and they offer a fascinating glimpse into the life and work of an extraordinary Australian.
2024-09-301h 15
The ABR Podcast'First Snow' by Kerry Greer | The Jolley PrizeBeginning this week on the ABR Podcast, we celebrate the 2024 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize shortlist over three episodes. In each episode, one of the three shortlisted authors will read their story – also published in the August issue of ABR. The overall winner of the Jolley Prize will be announced at an event at Gleebooks in Sydney on August 15. Proceeding in alphabetical order, Episode One features Kerry Greer’s ‘First Snow’. The judges had this to say about ‘First Snow’: ‘First Snow’ subtly enacts a vulnerable young woman’s decision to leave her self-absorbed, manipulative partn...
2024-08-0832 min
The BookshelfWilly Vlautin's The Horse: drenched in twangy music and heartbreakAward-winning U.S. author Willy Vlautin's The Horse is his poignant new novel about the life of a lonely country musician in Nevada and his chance encounter with a half blind horse. Plus, bookseller David Gaunt reviews Ammar Kalia's A Person Is a Prayer, one family's story of migration from Kenya and India to the UK; and Wellington based critic and curator Claire Mabey looks at Laurence Fearnley's At The Grand Glacier Hotel, which follows a stormy family holiday set on New Zealand's South Island.BOOKSWilly Vlautin, The Horse, FaberAmmar Kalia...
2024-07-2654 min
ChangemakersDaniel Mulino Chat - ChangeMaker Chat - Welfare StateOne of the biggest challenges facing any change maker is how to enlist help from the state, especially when it comes to the fight for economic justice. Australian Labor Party Member of Parliament, Daniel Mulino, has written about the history and future of the welfare state, and in his recent book Safety Net proposes new (and old) ways for imagining the welfare state as a vehicle for managing personal and social risk. This ChangeMaker Chat explores how Daniel’s personal experiences and his time in local, state and federal politics have helped shape his approach to renewing the welfare state.
Th...
2022-10-0433 min
ChangeMakersDaniel Mulino - ChangeMaker Chat - Welfare StateOne of the biggest challenges facing any change maker is how to enlist help from the state, especially when it comes to the fight for economic justice. Australian Labor Party Member of Parliament, Daniel Mulino, has written about the history and future of the welfare state, and in his recent book Safety Net proposes new (and old) ways for imagining the welfare state as a vehicle for managing personal and social risk. This ChangeMaker Chat explores how Daniel’s personal experiences and his time in local, state and federal politics have helped shape his approach to renewing the welfare st...
2022-10-0333 min
James and Ashley Stay at HomeBehind the scenes of 'Denizen,' the debut novel from James McKenzie Watson'Denizen,' the Penguin Literary Prize winning novel from James McKenzie Watson is finally out in the world! In this episode, Ashley asks James about the experience of taking 'Denizen' from idea to published novel. He shares insights into how to seriously improve your writing craft and how to understand your work as a reflection of your life. James also answers the big question – what does his mum think of 'Denizen?' James McKenzie Watson writes fiction with a focus on health and rural Australia. His novel 'Denizen' won the 2021 Penguin Literary Prize. 'Denizen' also received a 2021 Va...
2022-07-1848 min