Conversations

Jake Adelstein's dogged reporting on Japan's organised crime earned him a nemesis in Tadamasa Goto, one of the most powerful Yakuza bosses in the country. When Jake's life was on the line, he found protection in surprising places

When Bonnie Garmus tried to sell her first novel, it was rejected 98 times. Then at 66, she wrote a novel called Lessons in Chemistry, which sold four million copies around the world

Archaeologist David Wengrow has discovered an entirely new way to think about the history of humanity, from the origins of farming, cities, democracy and slavery to civilisation itself

Matt Hall made his first solo flight at 15 years old and has been addicted to life in the air ever since. He became a top gun fighter pilot and after serving for more than 20 years, he still hasn't come down to earth (R)

Archaeologist Julien Cooper digs up the remote deserts of Sudan and Egypt, finding forgotten artefacts, which tell the uninterrupted, thousands-year-old story of the nomadic peoples of Northeast Africa

Billy Bragg grew up in working-class Barking, east of London. The expected path was to go from school to the local car factory, but Billy his sights set further, and even a brief stint in the army couldn’t keep him away from a life in music (R)

At the make or break moment of his choreography career, the last person Rafael expected to hear from was Australia’s pop princess — Kylie Minogue

When Dugald Jellie was growing up in country Victoria, it was dads — his own and his friends' — who opened the world up for him, and as a father himself, today he is paying it forward

Firie Bronnie Mackintosh attends emergencies to cut people out of crushed cars and rescue them from burning buildings (R)

What happens when a man can't stop his drive and desire for more? Author Andrew O'Hagan dissects the pitfalls of more money, more success and more applause in his latest novel

In the decades before Ruth Shaw became a bookseller in New Zealand's Fiordland, she lived the incredible stories of adventure, love and tragedy that now line the shelves in her shops

Artist Brigita Ozolins grew up hearing about the magic of her mother's home country, Latvia. It wasn't until she was in her 50s that Brigita understood why her mother fled that paradise, full of flowers and polite children

Astrophysicist Naomi McClure-Griffiths was making an atlas of our galaxy when she discovered an entirely new spiral arm of the Milky Way

Sean Fong is a para world champion in jiu-jitsu. The 'gentle' martial art has allowed Sean to shatter any illusions that society might have about people with physical differences (R)

From its surprising successes to its dismal failures, historian Frank Bongiorno takes you through the wild 130-year history of the Australian Labor Party

Troy Cassar-Daley grew up walking a tightrope between two worlds after his mum and dad broke up when he was small. As a grown man, a trip on a country music cruise began to change his story (CW: discussion of suicidal ideation and suicide)

When Bonnie Hancock stumbled on a book in her local library, she got a gut feeling that refused to go away. And so she set off on a gruelling 12,700km journey around Australia on her surf ski

Cassandra Pybus exposes the secret trade of the skeletal remains of the first people of Tasmania. CW: This episode contains upsetting discussion about grave desecration and the trading of human remains

Fungi have given us many gifts, from penicillin to food, but they can also be quite scary. Dr Alison Pouliot spends her time trying to explain these strange alien-like things, which do their most interesting work underground (R)