Our latest blog posts

Ideas for spooky (and not so spooky) Halloween fun

It’s almost Halloween and for all you naysayers out there, here’s a timely reminder of why we love this holiday!

1. Lots of kids love the giddy thrill of being scared, and Halloween really is the best time for spooky fun.

2. Halloween, which is thought to have originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, is a holiday with a long history of fascinating stories and strange traditions to delve into.

3. If you spent hours making a costume…

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Guardian children’s fiction prize shortlist 2016

The shortlist for this year’s Guardian children’s fiction prize has been announced. Congratulations to UK authors Tanya Landman and Alex Wheatle, US author Brian Selznick and Melbourne’s own – Zana Fraillon!

The four books on this year’s shortlist will transport young readers all over the world, and across time.

Tanya Landman’s Hell and High Water is a heart-stopping tale of a young man’s attempt to clear his father’s name set in eighteenth-century England. Alex Wheatle’s Crongton Knights is a funny…

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Baillie Gifford Prize shortlist 2016

The £30,000 Baillie Gifford prize (formerly known as the Samuel Johnson prize) is the UK’s most prestigious award for nonfiction writing.

This year’s shortlist includes books from Belarusian writer and Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich, Pulitzer Prize-winning cultural critic Margo Jefferson, Franco-British lawyer Philippe Sands, QC, and Libyan writer Hisham Matar.

Chair of Judges Stephanie Flanders, says: ‘Of the many superb books on the longlist, these are the four books that each of us [judges] would be happy so see…

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Zoë Morrison wins the 2016 Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction

The winner of The Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction in 2016 is Music and Freedom by Zoë Morrison.

The Readings Prize was launched in 2014, with the aim of supporting new and emerging Australian authors. It is unique in the Australian literary prize landscape as it is the only significant prize to be managed entirely by a bookshop, and it considers both first and second works of fiction by Australian authors – a point of difference that is important…

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Our top ten bestsellers of the week

The Good People by Hannah Kent

Fight Like a Girl by Clementine Ford

The Boy Behind the Curtain by Tim Winton

The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben

The Girl on the Train (film tie-in edition) by Paula Hawkins

Who Gave You Permission? by Manny Waks with Michael Visontay

Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen

Conclave by Robert Harris

Black Rock White City by A.S. Patrić

Neighbourhood by Hetty McKinnon

Australian Hannah Kent’s heart-rending second novel is our bestselling…

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What we're reading: Emily Maguire, Briohny Doyle and iO Tillett Wright

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.

Nina Kenwood is reading Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance

I’m obsessed with the US election at the moment, to a probably unhealthy degree. I listen to podcasts about it (my favourites are Slate’s Trumpcast and NPR’s Politics Podcast), read almost every article that…

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Why you should read the entire Readings Prize shortlist

This year’s shortlist for the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction features six impressive first and second works of fiction from emerging Australian authors. Here’s why we think you should read every single one…

Here’s why you should read Portable Curiosities

1. Portable Curiosities is a bold, wildly imaginative story collection.
2. This book is very, very funny.
3. As well as being entertaining, these stories are biting critiques of racism, class, and other important issues in Australia.
4.

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Bob Dylan wins the 2016 Nobel prize in literature

This year’s Nobel prize for literature has been awarded to American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan.

This is a historic (and controversial!) decision as it’s the first time this honour has ever gone to a musician. The Swedish Academy credited Dylan with ‘having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition’.

Here’s a short round-up of some interesting articles from around the internet about the news:

Our favourite Dylan lyrics (via The New Yorker)

Bob Dylan’s Nobel prize is

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10 words for booklovers, bookworms and bibliophiles

1. Bibliosmia: The smell and aroma of a good book.

2. Abibliophobia: The fear of running out of reading material.

3. Tsundoku: Japanese word for the condition of acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one’s home without reading them.

4. Shelf-righteous: The feeling of superiority about one’s bookshelf.

5. Librocubicularist: A person who reads in bed.

6. Book-bosomed: An individual who carries a book with them at all times.

7. Ballycumber: Coined by Douglas Adams, this term…

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