A new documentary examines the life of military analyst Des Ball and his role in our understanding of Pine Gap, the big bucks that are being made in academic publishing and how notebooks have been a tool for creativity through history.

Saree Makdisi questions the perceptions by the West of Israel as a liberal democracy and Will Tosh questions whether William Shakespeare was gay, and does it really matter.

Bruce Shapiro on how Kamala Harris can turn the Trump campaign on its head, theoretical physicist Paul Davies says there's a lot to be gained from artificial intelligence - if we're mindful about how we use it and Simon Cleary on his walk down the Brisbane River.

Laura Tingle on the Opposition's renewed focus on Howard's battlers, Richard Ackland on whether Linda Reynolds should be suing Brittany Higgins over social media comments, and Antoni Gaudi - a bad-tempered genius, but was he a saint?

How much reform can we expect from the President of Iran while the Ayatollah Khomeini is still the Supreme Leader. How many countries can your passport get you access to? Passports provide freedom to cross borders but that freedom comes at a price. 

France remains in limbo while deciding on a new Prime Minister and historian Joan Beaumont takes us to the war graves on the island of Ambon and asks how should we commemorate those that died in war now and into the future.

Will British PM Keir Starmer be able to restore faith in politics in the UK? And who will the Tories choose as their next leader? Plus the little told story of the nurses who cared for, and advocated for, AIDS patients, when most people were afraid of them.

Laura Tingle on which laws the Albanese government hasn't been able to get through parliament, Bruce Shapiro on the impact of the Trump assassination attempt on the upcoming election, plus the secret plan to unravel the French submarine deal. 

The young Rupert Murdoch was a radical who espoused socialism, kept a bust of Lenin in his uni accommodation and then went on to build his empire from 1950s Adelaide. 

Walter Marsh is a journalist and author of Young Rupert - the making of the Murdoch empire,  published by Scribe. 

Lara Marlowe reflects on the life and work of her late partner, the great English writer and journalist Robert Fisk in her memoir Love In A Time Of War: My Years with Robert Fisk. 

And Azar Nafisi, Iranian-American writer and professor of English literature believes we need to read dangerously in order to resist the populist and polarising impulses of contemporary politics. Her book is called Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times