Our latest blog posts
What we're reading: Carrie Fisher, Angie Thomas and the Mekong Review
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 Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Angie Thomas’s debut YA novel has generated a lot of buzz, and it’s definitely deserved. Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, The Hate U Give is the story of 16-year-old Starr who is the only witness to the fatal shooting of her unarmed…
Readings is a finalist for the Customer Experience Store Design of the Year Award
We’re thrilled to have been selected as a finalist for Inside Retail’s Customer Experience Store Design of the Year Award, for the design of our two new shops, Readings Doncaster and Readings Kids.
Working with local Melbourne architecture firm Nest, and drawing on our own experience of almost 50 years in bookselling, we aimed to create the best in-store customer experience in both new bookshops. We wanted our shops to be beautiful spaces for the community to gather…
Walter Scott Prize longlist 2017
The longlist for the 2017 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction has been announced.
Here is the full longlist of 13 titles:
A Country Road, A Tree by Jo Baker
The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes
Days Without End by Sebastian Barry
Crane Pond by Richard Francis
The Dark Circle by Linda Grant
The Vanishing Futurist by Charlotte Hobson
The Good People by Hannah Kent
Minds of Winter by Ed O’Loughlin
The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
Inky Awards longlists 2017
The Centre for Youth Literature has just announced the two longlists for the Inky Awards.
The Inky Awards recognise high-quality young adult literature. There are two awards: the Gold Inky Award for an Australian book, and the Silver Inky Award for an international book. The shortlist is selected by young adults, and the winners are voted for online by the teen readers of InsideaDog.com.au.
The Gold Longlist (Australian books)
The Gold Longlist makes for a fantastic LoveOzYA reading list…
Q&A with Alison Evans, author of Ida
We chat with debut Australian author Alison Evans about their debut YA crossover novel, Ida, an evanescent story of doppelgangers, time travel and deciding what to do with your life.
Your protagonist Ida has the intriguing ability to move between parallel universes – an ability that grants her power and control, but also brings her much confusion. What were the origins of this idea?
I was working in a cafe at a tourist railway and had finished for the…
Stories told from beyond the grave
Whether you believe in ghosts or not, these otherworldly narrators offer a fascinating take on the world of the living.
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Alice Sebold’s bestselling novel tends to be the one that comes first to mind when people think about books narrated from the afterlife. Suzie Salmon was murdered by her creepy neighbour at the age of 14, and she watches from heaven as her family comes to term with her unsolved disappearance. The Lovely Bones…
How to read a wordless picture book
One of the most popular picture books of last year was comedian and actor B.J. Novak’s The Book with No Pictures. The book, which really does have only words and no pictures, compels the reader to say some very silly things out loud.
But what about a picture book that has no words? How on earth do you ‘read’ it? Put simply, it’s up to you and the little person sitting with you to supply your own words and…
Our children's and YA top ten bestsellers of the week
The Midnight Gang by David Walliams and Tony Ross
Unleashed (The Adventures of Dog Man Book 2) by Dav Pilkey
In My Heart: A Book of Feelings by Jo Witek and Christine Roussey
Mopoke by Philip Bunting
Girl Stuff for Girls Aged 8-12 by Kaz Cooke
The Bad Guys: Episode 1 (Book 1) by Aaron Blabey
Laugh Your Head off Again by various authors
Withering-By-Sea (A Stella Montgomery Intrigue) by Judith Rossell
Wormwood Mire (A Stella Montgomery Intrigue) by…
Our top ten bestsellers of the week
The Barefoot Investor by Scott Pape
Fight Like a Girl by Clementine Ford
Lion by Saroo Brierley
Between a Wolf and a Dog by Georgia Blain
Big Little Lies (TV tie-in edition) by Liane Moriarty
Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
The Good People by Hannah Kent
The Daughters of Henry Wong by Harrison Young
The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen
The Sellout by Paul Beatty
Scott Pape’s The Barefoot Investor has now been our bestselling book for seven weeks in…
Here's what we know about The Book of Dust, so far
Here are 10 things we know about Philip Pullman’s much-anticipated upcoming fantasy trilogy. (Okay, nine things we know, and one thing I hope…)
1. The Book of Dust is going to be a three-part book series that overlaps with Pullman’s beloved His Dark Materials trilogy, and has the ever-brilliant Lyra Belacqua at its heart. Pullman describes his new trilogy as neither prequel or sequel, but rather as ‘equel’; the new books will stand as companions to the original trilogy.
2.…