Mato just raised pre-seed Read more
Podcast charts
Published by Gleebooks Sydney
Gleetalks is a series of some of the most interesting and popular conversations from Sydney’s finest literary events program at Sydney's best loved bookshop. Go to our events page to discover even more fascinating discussions featuring some of Australia and the world's most interesting people!
On the charts
Every published chart this podcast appears in, in the snapshot behind this page. Each one links to the chart it came off.
The Mato Topic Intelligence Platform does not report this podcast as charting in a published category in this snapshot.
From the feed
The latest episodes published to this podcast’s own RSS feed. Titles and descriptions are the publisher’s.
For decades, Rupert Murdoch’s global media empire has shaped political landscapes, influenced elections, and fuelled public opinion. But behind the headlines lies a darker story — of targeted campaigns, smear tactics, and relentless attacks on those who don’t fit the Murdoch mould. From LGBTQI communities and women’s rights advocates to progressive politicians, human rights defenders, and even conservatives deemed ‘not right enough’, this book reveals how News Corp turns disagreement into a declaration of war.
The Battle for Public Education: How did we end up pitting our kids against one another? For decades, Australia has been pumping money into private education while public schools struggle. The current system contributes to greater inequity, decreased integration of different communities and even traffic jams as parents are more likely to drive their kids to a private school further from their house. At the same time, with higher rates of private school attendance and the marketisation of education, parents have increased anxiety when faced with the decision of where to send their child. How did we get here? Jane Caro walks through the decades of policy decisions that have created this situation and identifies the choices that have created the current education crisis. With her trademark no-nonsense analysis and drawing from her personal experiences, Caro lays out the steps that brought us to this point and what Australia can do to get a public education system worthy of such a wealthy country.
On the thirtieth anniversary of John Howard coming to power, a searing analysis of the untouchable prime minister: how the ‘great economic manager’ sold our future. John Howard is often revered as one of the great Australian prime ministers (1996–2007): economically prudent, politically astute, ‘relaxed and comfortable’ with Australia’s identity, venerated by the Liberal Party and grudgingly admired by the left. Why then – just twenty years after his government ended – are we in such a mess? Amy Remeikis is one of our most astute and convincing political commentators, and here she argues for a complete revision of how we see Howard’s tenure, for the first time holding him to account for the future he created.
The revealing biography of a leading and enigmatic Australian novelist. Australian novelist Elizabeth Harrower wrote some of the most intense, original and highly regarded psychological fiction of the twentieth century. Then she abruptly stopped writing in the 1970s and became one of the most puzzling mysteries of Australian literature. Why didn't she continue? Harrower gave elusive answers to friends and interviewers, and only since her death in 2020 has a deeper search been possible. When Harrower's four novels were brought back into print between 2012 and 2014, followed by a novel she had withdrawn from her publisher in 1971 and a collection of her short stories, a renaissance of admiration followed. In this engrossing biography, Susan Wyndham grapples with the questions that remained unanswered, the dynamics of Harrower's circles of famous friends, and her remarkable books and their timeless dissections of the human heart.
In both her life and work, Holmes has consistently broken barriers. The first female presenter of the ABC’s flagship sports programme, Grandstand , she has pioneered coverage of and by women in sport. Her longform style of interviewing and her reporting on world events like the Olympics and FIFA World Cups have introduced us to athletes from all backgrounds and nations, from our own Cathy Freeman and James Hird to Ayrton Senna and Pele. Anchor, reporter, podcaster and – for a rocky spell over the 2000 Sydney Olympics – media manager, Holmes has never sought to divorce sport and the politics of the world it’s played in. As well as recounting highlights (and a couple of lowlights) from her career, in this book she shares her views on drugs in sport, Sam Kerr, and what challenges face the Olympics before the 2032 Brisbane Games.
Brisbane, 1975 : Andie Tanner's world is small but whole. Her mum is complicated, but she adores her dad and the kennel of racing greyhounds that live under their house. Andie is a serious girl with big plans: finish school with her friends, then apprentice to her father so she can become a greyhound trainer, with dogs of her very own. But real life rarely goes to plan, and the world is bigger and more complicated than Andie could imagine. When she loses everything she cares about - her family, her friends, the dogs - it's up to Andie to reclaim her future. But she'll need all her wits to survive this new reality of secrets, half-truths and addiction.
Jacqueline traces the social and political issues that inspired Australian radical women writers and their desire to change the world. Australia's crusaders for women's voting rights and the radical feminists of the 1970s changed lives across the country and around the globe. But what about the generation in between? Throughout the twentieth century, a group of trailblazing women writers challenged the nation's status quo. Miles Franklin's forceful voice invigorated the emerging women's movement, Mary Gilmore was a groundbreaking feminist journalist, and novelists Katharine Susannah Prichard and Eleanor Dark explored the colonial displacement of Australia's Indigenous people. Kylie Tennant spoke up for battlers during the Depression. Dymphna Cusack, Katharine Susannah Prichard and Dorothy Hewett, all members of Australia's Communist Party, advocated for social reform. Ruth Park's The Harp in the South jolted the NSW government into developing slum clearance programs. And the work of First Nations poet and activist Kath Walker (later Oodgeroo Noonuccal) was crucial in achieving constitutional reform for Indigenous peoples. Acclaimed biographer Jacqueline Kent traces these women's stories,
In SAFFRON INCORPORATED, music industry legend Stuart Coupe shows how showbusiness and the underworld are intrinsically linked - from nightclub fires, corrupt cops, cocaine, smack, illegal gambling, vice, celebrities, standover men and rock'n'roll promoters, musicians who partied hard and lost their way, dodgy accountants and gangland shootings -one man, the original King of the Cross, lay the foundations for more than fifty years of intrigue, murder and mayhem.
Australia has forgotten what keeps it safe. So argues Michael Wesley in this sharp and compelling essay about our place in the world. His previous books include There Goes the Neighbourhood: Australia and the Rise of Asia and Mind of the Nation: Universities in Australian Life. He is Professor of Politics and Deputy Vice Chancellor (Global, Culture and Engagement) at the University of Melbourne and was formerly head of the Lowy Institute and dean of ANU's College of Asia and the Pacific.
One of Australia’s most influential public health thinkers, Emeritus Professor Simon Chapman AO has released a new book that reflects on a career spent reshaping how Australians understand health and responsibility. Better to be looked over, than overlooked: 50 years of public health research and advocacy , is part memoir, part manifesto, tracing five decades of scholarship and advocacy that helped counter powerful industry interests and bring public health into the national conversation. For many, public health may feel like something that happens behind the scenes in government departments or academic journals. Professor Chapman’s career demonstrates the opposite. Public health is about applying a critical lens to social norms, changing environments, and equipping communities with the information they need to live healthier lives. Few have done more to advance that mission in Australia than Professor Chapman.
In the year 2000, an Australian woman travels to The Hague to work as the secretary for an Australian judge. There, she sits through the trial of a former military man who has been charged with war crimes. As the trial proceeds, she is confronted with two conflicting impulses: being deeply affected by the testimony of witnesses, while at the same time plagued by an enduring doubt as to the defendant's guilt.Meanwhile, she begins an unexpected romance and friendship, and these relationships help her to understand the stories of extraordinary survival she hears about during the trial. When she is called back to Australia to reckon with her own childhood, she finds she can't quite leave everything she's heard behind. Out of the Woods asks what it means to bear witness to the suffering of people who have experienced real tragedy and whether it is possible, afterwards, to resume a normal life.'A triumph. Out of the Woods traces the complex lines of complicity and grief a deeply compelling and humane story about what it means to bear witness. This is a book that looks into your soul.' Stephanie Bishop'This searchingly original novel counters the historical weight of human cruelty with small acts of attention and persistence. Shirm's empathy and intelligent precision exert a quiet moral authority on every page.' Delia Falconer
Calendar is an essay collection in the form of a daybook, written in real-time over a year. The book takes inspiration from writers who use experiments and constraints, such as Georges Perec/Oulipo and Bernadette Mayer, as well as autobiographical writers who use inventive structures, such as Christina Sharpe in Ordinary Notes, and Sheila Heti in Alphabetical Diaries. Calendar is based on the French Republican calendar of the late 18th century, in which every day was dedicated to an object, and applies this concept to objects of contemporary life. For a year Berry paid attention to her encounters with objects over the course of the day, and every night wrote an essay based on one object, and drew an illustration of it. Combining the narrative of a year and stories of the 365 objects themselves, Calendar is about tuning in to the unexpected, playful and solemn lives of the objects around us.
***WARNING: Contains some graphic medical content *** It all started when a daughter asked her father 'Are there any risks?'. Investigative journalist Charlotte Grieve had a very personal reason to be interested in celebrated orthopaedic surgeon Dr Munjed Al Muderis. Her father had lost his leg almost sixty years before a chance meeting with Dr Al Muderis, who raised concerns about her father's ongoing mobility. The famous doctor told him that osseointegration surgery would keep him out of a wheelchair. Her mother suggested a second opinion. The collision of the personal and professional would spark an investigation that led to a $20 million defamation trial. Charlotte uncovered serious concerns about the doctor's surgical practice and evidence that he routinely failed to adequately inform patients of the risks involved in his signature procedure. Doctors have a duty of care, but they also legally have a duty to warn. It means that they must warn patients of any risks. When that is not done, vulnerable people have to live with the consequences. Buy the book here: https://gleebooks.com.au/p/duty-to-warn
The Rot is a recalcitrant study of the decaying romances, expired hopes and abject injustices of the world. A liturgy for girlhood in the dying days of late-stage capitalism, these poems expose fraying nerves and tendons of a speaker refusing to avert their gaze from the death of Country, death on Country, and the bloody violence of settler colonies here and afar. Across sleepless nights, fractured alliances and self-destructive coping strategies, The Rot is what happens when poetry swallows more rage than it can console, quiet or ironise – this book demands you ready yourself for a better world. Buy the book here - https://glee.circlepos.com/p/the-rot
Above an already swamped Sydney, a disastrous weather system looms. The city is not repaired from one storm before the next hits. There is enormous distrust of the civil service, including police. Redfern is now a swampland. Anyone who has the financial means or the property to, sells up and heads to the Blue Mountains and beyond, or better yet, New Zealand. Sydney is full of climate refugees from Asia and the Pacific, and from the east coast of Australia. Food and water insecurity have created tension. There is poverty, suspicion and cultural disharmony. A world of have and have nots. Developers raise most of their money here from building detention camps. But how closely are those builds monitored? After all the 1% aren't going to be living there.
Paul Robeson was once the most famous African American in the world. Not only was he a renowned singer and actor with a stunning bass baritone voice, he was also a former professional athlete, lawyer and civil rights activist. To the delight of his many fans, he and his wife, Eslanda—a notable civil rights activist, author, United Nations journalist and anthropologist—were finally able to tour Australia and New Zealand after a three decade delay, just as the Cold War tipped into the turbulent 1960s. The Robesons’ tour encompassed concerts, talks to unionists, fans, women’s organisations, communists, peace activists and Indigenous peoples and their struggles in both countries, encompassing intersections of race, gender and women’s political activism. Historian Ann Curthoys talks to Professor Lorena Allam of the University of Technology’s Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Research about how Paul and Eslanda’s trip energised new forms of First Nations protest. Like what you heard? Buy your copy here. https://gleebooks.com.au/product/last-tour-the-paul-and-eslanda-robesons-visit-to-australia-and-new-zealand-in-1960/
Beatrice Faust was the transformative feminist activist, writer and intellectual who founded the Women’s Electoral Lobby in Melbourne in 1972. She campaigned for abortion law reform, and thought, talked and wrote about sex and feminism. She also endured a miserable childhood, and suffered chronic ill health as well as a later-life addiction to prescription drugs. Her letters reveal a complex, troubled inner life that belied the confident charisma of her public persona. In this fascinating episode of Gleetalks award-winning biographer Judith Brett talks to ABC political correspondent and presenter Annabel Crabb about this gifted, argumentative woman who refused to be a victim, in her book The Fearless Beatrice Faust: Sex Feminism and the Body Politic , published by Text Publishing. Like what you heard? Buy your copy here. https://gleebooks.com.au/product/fearless-beatrice-faust-sex-feminism-and-body-politics/
In 1966, with the words ‘Bombard the Headquarters!’ Mao Zedong unleashed the full, violent force of a movement that he called the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. By the time he died ten years later, millions had perished, China’s cultural heritage was in ruins, its economic state was perilous, its institutions of government were damaged and its society was bitterly divided. Author and China watcher Linda Jaivin talks to award-winning author Lech Blaine about the Cultural Revolution, and Bombard the Headquarters ! published by Black Inc. Like what you heard? Buy your copy here . https://gleebooks.com.au/product/bombard-the-headquarters-the-cultural-revolution-in-china/
We’re all looking for love, but although it’s been years since I was lucky enough to find the love of my life, the world of online dating seems fraught with obstacles, uncertainties and contradictions. Or so I’m told! Although modern society and media have sold us the fairytale of that one big, romantic love – chemistry, sparks, passion – the majority of people don’t think a big love can be discovered on dating apps. And given our consumer culture’s fixation on the disposable and the new, many lonely hearts become stuck in a cycle of looking for the next, even better relationship. Ironically, while we’re on this quest for romantic novelty, we may also be craving long-term partnerships, feeling like failures if we don’t achieve them. How can we reconcile these conflicting desires? Dating app academic Dr Lisa Portolan talks to presenter of A Better World Blueprint Shevonne Hunt about what love looks like in the digital age. Like what you heard? Buy your copy here. https://gleebooks.com.au/product/ten-ways-to-find-love-and-how-to-keep-it/
“The Canberra establishment is shocked by any suggestion that we should walk away from the ANZUS commitments. They think we can and must depend on America more than ever in today’s hard new world. But that misses the vital point. It’s America that is walking away from the commitments it made in very different circumstances seventy-five years ago. That was plain enough under Joe Biden. It’s crystal clear today under Trump. So argues defense and intelligence analyst Hugh White in his urgent Quarterly Essay, Hard New World: Our Post-American Future . White talks to former US and Australian political advisor Bruce Wolpe of the United States Studies Centre about the big strategic geopolitical trends across the world as America exits the field and how Australia should respond. Like what you heard? Buy your copy here. https://gleebooks.com.au/product/quarterly-essay-98-on-australia-the-new-world-order/
Ranking source
Apple Podcasts rankings via the Mato Topic Intelligence Platform.
Observed September 18, 2026. Cached outside the daily freshness window; the positions keep the date they were taken on.
Apple and Apple Podcasts are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.
Pairs with
Bring this source into Mato to read its transferable patterns, then turn them into an original show for your own audience.