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Our top ten bestsellers of the week
Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman
The White Queen – One Nation and the Politics of Race (Quarterly Essay 65) by David Marr
Earthly Remains by Donna Leon
Prussian Blue by Philip Kerr
The Barefoot Investor by Scott Pape
The Dry by Jane Harper
The Thirst by Jo Nesbo
A Writing Life by Bernadette Brennan
First, We Make the Beast Beautiful by Sarah Wilson
Who’s Afraid of International Law? edited by Raimond Gaita and Gerry Simpson
Crime fiction dominates…
Our children's and YA top ten bestsellers of the week
Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls by Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo
The Treehouse Fun Book 2 by Andy Griffiths, Jill Griffiths and Terry Denton
Really Weird! (WeirDo Book 8) by Anh Do and Jules Faber
In My Heart: A Book of Feelings by Jo Witek
A Most Magical Girl by Karen Foxlee
Wonder by R.J. Palacio
I’m Australian Too by Mem Fox and Ronojoy Gosh
The Secrets We Keep by Nova Weetman
Elizabeth and Zenobia by Jessica Miller
…
What we're reading: Elif Batuman, Philip Kerr and Trevor Noah
Each week we bring you a sample of the books we’re reading, the films and TV shows we’re watching, and the music we’re listening to.
Bronte Coates is reading The Idiot by Elif Batuman
I’m a third of the way through The Idiot and loving it. This is such a smart, surreal and absorbing campus novel; Elif Batuman is a sharp and insightful writer, with a talent for bringing out the funny side of everyday life. The eponymous idiot of…
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…
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…
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…
Five reasons we love The Secrets We Keep by Nova Weetman
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…
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…
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…
Children's books that teach empathy
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…
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