Our latest blog posts

Our top ten bestsellers of the week

Black Rock White City by A.S. Patrić

Harry Potter And The Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany

The Hate Race by Maxine Beneba Clarke

Nutshell by Ian McEwan

The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo by Amy Schumer

Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty

The Course of Love by Alain de Botton

Skylarking by Kate Mildenhall

Grant and I by Robert Forster

Ghost Empire by Richard Fidler

Last Friday, Melbourne author (and our own St Kilda…

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Q&A with Miles Franklin winner A.S. Patrić

Congratulations on being named this year’s winner of the Miles Franklin! How did you react when you got the news?

It’s near the end of winter in Melbourne so my wife and daughters were all home on a Monday because of a shared cold. The news came via a phone call near lunchtime and when I hung up and told my family, there was lots of hugging, cheering and dancing around our kitchen. And then, since it was a secret…

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Ned Kelly Awards winners 2016

Congratulations to the 2016 winners of the Ned Kelly Awards for the best in Australian crime writing.

Best Fiction

Before it Breaks by Dave Warner

Detective Daniel Clement is back in Broome, licking his wounds from a busted marriage and struggling to be impressed by his new team of small-town cops. Here, in the oasis on the edge of the desert, life is as stagnant as Clement’s latest career move. But when a body is discovered in a local fishing…

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Davitt Awards winners 2016

Congratulations to the 2016 winners of the Davitt Awards for the best crime books by Australian women.

Adult novels + Debut + Reader’s Choice Award

Resurrection Bay by Emma Viskic

Caleb Zelic, profoundly deaf since early childhood, has always lived on the outside – watching, picking up tell-tale signs people hide in a smile, a cough, a kiss. When a childhood friend is murdered, a sense of guilt and a determination to prove his own innocence sends Caleb on a…

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Black Rock White City wins the Miles Franklin Literary Award 2016

A.S. Patrić is the winner of this year’s Miles Franklin Literary Award for his first novel, Black Rock White City!

Black Rock White City is a powerful story about the damages of war, the limits of choice, and the hope of love. During a hot Melbourne summer Jovan’s cleaning work at a bayside hospital is disrupted by acts of graffiti and violence. As Jovan cleans up the mysterious words, it dislodges the poetry of his past; fleeing Sarajevo with…

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What we're reading: Maxine Beneba Clarke, Cath Crowley and Sam Carmody

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.

Ann Le Lievre is reading The Windy Season by Sam Carmody

This debut novel had an electrifying affect on me, though at first, it didn’t seem like it would…

Paul is 17, lives with his family in Perth and his older brother, Elliot, has gone missing. Over the recent months, Elliot had working…

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Dear Reader, September 2016

by Alison Huber

Here we are in September, which, as the years go on, is really starting to feel like the official start of the festive season in bookselling and publishing. That means that lots of Big Books for 2016 are about to come your way! For example, you can expect to hear a lot about Ann Patchett’s new novel, Commonwealth (already a firm favourite amongst early readers, including myself ). The new Ian McEwan is – well, it’s the new Ian McEwan…

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$5 book sale at Readings Bargains pop-up shop

The Readings Bargains pop-up shop is open for just one more week, and there has been no better time to get a book at a bargain price then now.

Drop by the pop-up shop at 315 Lygon Street, right next door to our Carlton shop, from now until Sunday 4 September and you’ll be able to pick up ANY book from in-store for just $5. (Though, only while stocks last.)

The shop has range of titles – from fiction to…

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This year's most anticipated young adult series

by Holly Harper

If you love young adult series for the unfolding storylines, the detailed world-building and the characters you can’t wait to revisit time and time again, then 2016 is going to be a very good year for you!

Below are some of the most highly anticipated sequels in our favourite YA series, and you won’t have to wait too long to get your hands on them.

Throne of Glass Book 5: Empire of Storms by Sarah J Maas

Celaena Sardothien is…

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Mark's Say, September 2016

by Mark Rubbo

As President Obama’s term comes to an end you get a sense of the wellspring of goodwill toward the President. It’s in stark contrast to Bill Clinton and George Bush, whose presidential legacies were tainted by tawdriness and disastrous foreign expeditions respectively. Obama is seen by most as an honourable person who despite being frustrated by a resistant legislature has managed to push through some of his key policies. Obama is also a reader and is a regular at Washington’s…

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