Our latest blog posts

Our top picks of the month for book clubs

For a meeting paired with a film screening…

Beyond The Rock by Janelle Mcculloch

In the winter of 1966, Lady Joan Lindsay wrote a short novel about a group of upper-class schoolgirls from a prestigious ladies’ college who disappear while on a country picnic in the summer of 1900. The result was a literary mystery that has endured for half a century. Beyond The Rock is the fascinating story of how Picnic at Hanging Rock was created and has since…

Read more ›

A reading list for fans of S-Town

S-Town, the new podcast from the team that brought us Serial, has fast became a favourite here at Readings. If, like us, you reached the end of the series and are left feeling bereft, here’s a reading list that might help.

My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout – This short, haunting book is the story of a woman, Lucy Barton, who grew up in deep poverty in a small, rural town. Like S-Town, it’s a sophisticated, empathetic…

Read more ›

Fiction from far-flung places

Here are eight new and recent fiction releases that come from authors writing around the globe – including one manuscript that was secretly smuggled out of North Korea.

From Nigeria…

Stay With Me by Ayòbámi Adébáyò

Yejide is hoping for a miracle child. She has tried everything – arduous pilgrimages, medical consultations, dances with prophets, appeals to God – but ultimately, her in-laws have insisted upon a new wife and it will prove too much for Yejide to bear. Unravelling…

Read more ›

Five reasons we love The Secrets We Keep by Nova Weetman

by Leanne Hall

The Secrets We Keep by Nova Weetman is one of the six books shortlisted for this year’s Readings Children’s Book Prize. Here are five reasons why we think it’s brilliant.

1. Clem is an unforgettable main character.

11-year-old Clem isn’t having the easiest time. Her family home has burned to the ground, she’s living in a strange new area in a small apartment with her dad, and she’s started at a new school, right in the middle of term. In…

Read more ›

Nine Australian books to read this month

Things That Helped by Jessica Friedmann

In this stunning collection of essays, Jessica Friedmann navigates her journey through postpartum depression after the birth of her son. Drawing on critical theory, popular culture, and personal experience, her wide-ranging essays touch on class, race, gender, and sexuality, as well as motherhood, creativity, and mental illness.

See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt

On 4 August 1892 Andrew and Abby Borden were murdered in their home in Fall River, Massachusetts. During the…

Read more ›

Colson Whitehead wins the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

Colson Whitehead has been awarded the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel, The Underground Railroad.

The Underground Railroad has been described as a literary blockbuster, earning widespread commercial and critical success. For this novel, Whitehead asks the question: What if the Underground Railroad was a literal railroad? The story centers on a young woman named Cora, who escapes her life as a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia and flees via this fantastical subterranean network of…

Read more ›

Children's books that teach empathy

by Bronte Coates

We begin to encounter difference right from the beginning of our lives, and all the way through to the end. There will always be different ideas about and ways of doing things, different needs and desires, different clothes and hairstyles, different cultures and different ways of communicating. So it’s smart to start teaching kids how to recognise, understand and respect difference right from the beginning. In short, let’s teach our kids empathy.

Here are some of my favourite children’s books…

Read more ›

International Dublin Literary Award shortlist 2017

Congratulations to the 10 authors shortlisted for this year’s International Dublin Literary Award.

This year’s shortlist includes…

The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli (translated by Christina MacSweeney)

Confession of the Lioness by Mia Couto (translated by David Brookshaw)

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa (translated by Daniel Hahn)

The Green Road by Anne Enright

The Prophets

Read more ›

Our children's and YA top ten bestsellers of the week

Really Weird! (WeirDo Book 8) by Anh Do and Jules Faber

13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher

Florette by Anna Walker

The Blue Cat by Ursula Dubosarsky

The Maddie Diaries by Maddie Ziegler

Grover Finds a Home (Grover McBane, Rescue Dog Book 1) by Claire Garth and Johannes Leak

The Treehouse Fun Book 2 by Andy Griffiths, Jill Griffiths and Terry Denton

Escape to the Moon Islands (Quest of the Sunfish Book 1) by Mardi McConnochie

Elizabeth

Read more ›

Our top ten bestsellers of the week

The White Queen – One Nation and the Politics of Race (Quarterly Essay 65) by David Marr

A Writing Life by Bernadette Brennan

Eyes Too Dry by Alice Chipkin and Jessica Tavassoli

The Barefoot Investor by Scott Pape

Earthly Remains by Donna Leon

Dear Quentin by Quentin Bryce

The Dry by Jane Harper

See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt

Things That Helped by Jessica Friedmann

Scummy Mummies by Ellie Gibson and Helen Thorn

Our bestselling book of…

Read more ›