Our latest blog posts
Our children's and YA top ten bestsellers of the week
The Midnight Gang by David Walliams and Tony Ross
Lots by Marc Martin
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (the original screenplay) by J.K. Rowling
A Most Magical Girl by Karen Foxlee
Wormwood Mire (A Stella Montgomery Intrigue) by Judith Rossell
Ruby Red Shoes Goes to London by Kate Knapp
The Call by Peadar Ó Guilín
Withering-By-Sea (A Stella Montgomery Intrigue) by Judith Rossell
Hotdog (Book 1) by Anh Do and Dan McGuiness
Double Down (Diary of a…
Our top ten bestsellers of the week
Fight Like a Girl by Clementine Ford
The Barefoot Investor by Scott Pape
The Good People by Hannah Kent
The Sellout by Paul Beatty
Swing Time by Zadie Smith
The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben
The Dry by Jane Harper
Fucking Apostrophes by Simon Griffin
Light and Shadow: Memoirs of a spy’s son by Mark Colvin
Music and Freedom by Zoë Morrison
Clementine Ford’s searing memoir/manifesto is our bestselling book of last week. Our reviewer writes that Fight…
What we're reading: Stacy Schiff, Georgia Blain and Nicola Yoon
Each week we bring you a sample of the books we’re reading, the films we’re watching, the television shows we’re hooked on or the music we’re loving.
Ellen Cregan is reading The Witches: Salem, 1692 by Stacy Schiff
I have always been the sort of reader who tends to devour books in hours, rather than days. This year I’ve been consciously attempting to slow down and take my time with the books I read. While I was relatively unsuccessful with…
Five books I’m still thinking about (months after reading them)
I am not a fast reader. I’m not able to whizz through hefty novels in a week let alone a night, I struggle to keep up with the new releases, and it takes me a while to get into a new voice, to feel comfortable with a new character. But when something really clicks with me, I obsess – I can’t put the book down, can’t stop talking about the characters to anyone I spend time with, and gift copies…
Literature outside the binary
by Asiel Adan SanchezTo celebrate the release of Archer Magazine’s THEY/THEIRS issue, which collects the experiences of non-binary and gender-fluid folks, we asked one of the mag’s contributors, Asiel Adan Sanchez, to name their top books that broke down the restrictions of gender.
Being non-binary means we often don’t see our lived experiences represented in literature. Although that is certainly changing over the past 10 years, we are nowhere near mainstream representation. We often lack words to describe ourselves, to understand our…
Books we didn't finish (but you might) in 2016
Our staff share the books that they didn’t quite finish this year… but that you might.
‘I don’t always cope well with violence in books, TV or film, and had to set aside Ian McGuire’s much-raved, page-turner of a novel, The North Water, after a particularly gory moment. I’m convinced that this book is just as brilliant as everyone says – it was voted one of our top ten fiction books of 2016 by my colleagues – but unfortunately…
Books we wouldn't have read without a recommendation in 2016
Our staff share the books they loved this year, but wouldn’t have read without a recommendation.
‘I picked up Justine Van der Leun’s We are Not Such Things after reading a glowing endorsement from the New Yorker and it’s one of the most powerful books I’ve read this year. It’s a gripping true crime story set in South Africa, during the final days of apartheid.’ – Mark Rubbo, managing director
‘I scored an advanced copy of Liane Moriaty’s most recent…
Books that made our skin crawl in 2016
Our staff share the books that made their skin crawl this year.
‘The most disturbing book I read this year was The Love of a Bad Man by Laura Elizabeth Woollett . This utterly compelling short story collection offers readers an unusual and affecting reading experience, coupling true crime with literary fiction. Each story centres on a real-life woman enamoured with a 'bad man’ – 20th century criminals from the USA, UK and Australia. Woollett’s immense skill in bringing each…
Books that made us cry in 2016
Our staff share the books that made them cry this year.
‘I cried while reading Julia Leigh’s Avalanche. Whatever your thoughts on assisted reproductive technology, this account of the author’s experience, written after her decision to finally stop IVF treatment, feels heartwrenchingly honest. Depending on the reader’s own experience, this is an eloquently written and informed insight into the human side of the 'process’, or it’s the journal they might have written themselves. Either way, it touches very deeply.‘…
Books that made us laugh in 2016
Our staff share the books that made them laugh this year.
‘I laughed myself stupid the whole way through Jennifer Wright’s book, It Ended Badly. This hilarious collection of essays about terrible break-ups in history gives some well-needed perspective to my own romantic escapades, and I loved Wright’s sympathetic, witty narrative style. I can’t wait to read her new book, Get Well Soon which is all about plagues, so more of the same, really.’ – Lian Hingee, digital marketing…
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