Our latest blog posts
Must-see panels this MWF 2024
Melbourne Writers Festival is just a month away, and if you're still considering which sessions to book we're sharing some of the fabulous panels and in-conversations that can expand your mind, without requiring any festival pre-reading! Browse the full MWF program here.
After 235 years of colonisation, who truly gets to be human in so-called Australia? Join Ziggy Ramo, Chelsea Watego and Lamisse Hamouda together in conversation with host Osman Faruqi.
When: Saturday 11…
The Stella Prize shortlist 2024
The shortlist for this year’s Stella Prize has been announced! The Stella Prize seeks to elevate the work of Australian women and non-binary writers. The $60,000 prize is awarded annually to one outstanding book deemed to be original, excellent, and engaging. This year’s prize saw over 224 entries.
Explore the 2024 Stella Prize shortlist below.
The Swift Dark Tide by Katia Ariel
What happens when, in the middle of a happy heterosexual marriage, a woman falls in love with another…
A recipe from Easy Wins by Anna Jones
Anna Jones is one of Readings’ absolute favourite cookbook authors, and we're thrilled to share a delicious recipe from her new book Easy Wins. This recipe for traybake lemon dal with pickled green chillies shows us just how easy it can be to cook up a delicious dal with next to no prep and the oven doing the work. A warming weeknight dinner, perfect for the cooler Melbourne evenings ahead.
Dal is a staple of our weeknight cooking. It’s…
The Women's Prize for Non-Fiction 2024 shortlist
The inaugural shortlist for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction has been announced! This new prize celebrates exceptional narrative non-fiction by women, and promotes excellence in writing, robust research, original narrative voices and accessibility. The Prize is valued at £30,000 and is open to all women writers from across the globe who are published in the UK and writing in English.
The winner will be announced on 13 June 2024.
Thunderclap by Laura Cumming
Thunderclap is a kaleidoscopic memoir connecting Laura…
Books to inspire your autumn baking
We're at the beginning of Autumn, and Easter and the end of daylight saving are looming. This seems like the perfect time to have a baking project to look forward to. Here are a few new and old favourites we think will inspire and get you excited.
Beatrix Bakes: Another Slice by Natalie Paull
Sweet-toothed superstar and bestselling baker Natalie Paull returns with Beatrix Bakes: Another Slice, an all-new compilation of colourful, creative recipes to delight fans and newcomers…
Thrilling and fantastical YA
The Last Bloodcarver by Vanessa Le
Science meets fantasy, with steampunk stylings and Vietnamese cultural in this incredible debut.
When Nhika is caught using her bloodcarving abilities during a sham medical appointment, she's captured by underground thugs and sold to an aristocratic family to heal the last witness of their father's murder.
When Nhika meets an alluring yet entitled physician's aide, Ven Kochin, she's forced to question the true intent behind this murder. When Nhika discovers that Kochin is not…
Top picks for book clubs this month
Australian fiction | Compassion by Julie Janson
From the acclaimed author of the Miles Franklin longlisted Madukka: The River Serpent and the Barbara Jefferis Award shortlisted Benevolence, Compassion continues Julie Janson’s emotional and intense literary exploration of the complex and dangerous lives of Aboriginal women during the 1800s in colonial New South Wales, which she began in Benevolence as a counter narrative to colonial history in Australian literature.
Compassion is the dramatised life story of one of Julie Janson’s…
The 2024 ABIA shortlists
The shortlists for the 2024 Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs) have been announced! The ABIAs celebrate the best books of the year, as judged by Australian book industry members.
Below are the shortlisted titles from each category.
General fiction book of the year
The Bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams
Dark Mode by Ashley Kalagian-Blunt
Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson
Green Dot by Madeleine Gray
Homecoming by Kate Morton
Mr Einstein’s Secretary by Matthew Reilly
…
CBCA Shortlisted Books 2024
The Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) has announced its Shortlisted Books for 2024. Congratulations to all the authors, illustrators and publishers! The CBCA presents annual awards to books of literary merit, for outstanding contribution to Australian children’s literature. The CBCA Awards were first presented in 1946 and are the longest-running book awards in Australia.
Below are links to the shortlist titles for each category.
Older Readers
Books in this category may be fiction, drama or poetry and are appropriate…
The March crime review
These are the crime books which have been read and reviewed by our excellent booksellers this month – all in one place!
What Happened to Nina? by Dervla McTiernan
Reviewed by Lian Hingee, digital marketing manager
Australia is blessed with some of the very best crime writers in the world right now, and Dervla McTiernan is without a doubt one of the finest. Her debut, The Rúin, was a global bestseller that won a host of awards when…
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