Chris Gordon
Chris Gordon is the community engagement and programming manager. She also writes on the topics of gardening and cooking for the Readings Monthly.
Review — 20 May 2024
Safe Space by Alyssa Huynh
In this candid collection of essays, Melbourne‑based Vietnamese-Australian author Alyssa Huynh gives a lesson in empathy. Her writing on a lifetime experience of continued racism is both poignant and directed…
Review — 20 May 2024
Smoke by Michael Brissenden
Journalist Michael Brissenden has covered the impact huge fires have on communities in his work for the ABC. This knowledge is apparent in his latest novel; an atmospheric dive into…
Review — 20 May 2024
Mrs Gulliver by Valerie Martin
I felt such immense sorrow when I finished reading this delightful and utterly entertaining novel. It has everything I need in it: a narrator that I adored, clever and fast-witted…
Review — 19 May 2024
The Desert Knows Her Name by Lia Hills
Towards the end of The Desert Knows Her Name, one of the main characters muses on how people can love and destroy the same thing; over and over, apparently.
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Blog post — 17 May 2024
At Home with Chris Gordon, the best lifestyle books of the month
Ela! Ela!: To Turkey and Greece, a Journey Home Through Food by Ella Mittas
Are you wistfully dreaming of travelling through Turkey and the Greek islands, but all you can…
Review — 21 Apr 2024
One of Us Is Missing by B.M. Carroll
This story is all a little too possible for my liking. The day I finished it, I woke at 3am in a cold sweat. This is the story that has…
Review — 21 Apr 2024
Why Do Horses Run? by Cameron Stewart
Cameron Stewart asks many things in this novel, most pensively: what does it take to walk away from one life to another? He asks us to consider how grief and…
Blog post — 11 Apr 2024
The best food and gardening books of the month, with Chris Gordon
Easy Wins: 12 Flavour Hits, 125 Delicious Recipes, 365 Days of Good Eating by Anna Jones
Did you know Anna Jones left her day job to write recipes and cook…
Blog post — 7 Apr 2024
A Q&A with Bri Lee
Many readers will be familiar with Bri Lee from her acclaimed nonfiction books, Eggshell Skull, Beauty, and Who Gets to Be Smart. Our events and programming manager…
Review — 26 Mar 2024
Caledonian Road by Andrew O’Hagan
I found Mayflies, Andrew O’Hagan’s last novel, such a cosy read about youth, music, and everlasting friendships. Here, in Caledonian Road, he tackles similar themes, but ‘cosiness’ is…
