From dangerous cults to the Miss Drag Teen Scholarship Pageant, these are our top young adult picks for the month of August.

YA BOOK OF THE MONTH

The Boundless Sublime by Lili Wilkinson

Ruby’s life is falling apart. After a shattering loss, she’s heartbroken and vulnerable and feeling utterly alone.

Then she sees beautiful, angelic Fox handing out water bottles on a street corner, and she thinks for a moment that her world has been saved. He is kind and…

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Later this month sees the Melbourne Writers Festival return to Federation Square with a great line up of Australian and International guests. The Festival gets off to a wonderful start on 26 August with the announcement of the winner of the Miles Franklin Award and an address by Maxine Beneba Clarke, author of the powerful new book The Hate Race – if you haven’t seen Maxine speak before I urge you to do so, she is a brilliant writer and…

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Here are eight books that will transport readers to other lands – all from authors appearing in this year’s Melbourne Writers Festival program .

The Wonder Trail by Steve Hely

Part travel guide, part pop history, part comic memoir, The Wonder Trail is the story of Steve Hely’s riotous journey from Los Angeles to the bottom of South America. Throughout his travels, Hely encounters the colourful, the wild and the downright absurd. An award-winning humour writer, Hely has been on…

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Emily Bitto interviews Kate Mildenhall about her debut novel, Skylarking.

At a low point during the writing of her debut novel, Skylarking, Kate Mildenhall wrote herself a letter in the voice of her main protagonist, a young nineteenth-century woman called Kate Gilbert.

‘I don’t totally believe in that idea of channelling characters,’ Mildenhall tells me, ‘but writing the letter did have the impact of being able to do that for me. She said to me, this is what…

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The eighth Harry Potter story (the script of the new West End play) was released on Sunday, and we have LOTS of feelings about it. Here are some important thoughts we had after finishing the book.

Please note – this blog post contains spoilers.

Scorpius is our new favourite character.

Okay, we freaking love Scorpius. He is delightful – a knowledge-hungry, good-hearted, resilient Slytherin with big dreams for the future, and an excellent sense of humour. Plus, his friendship with…

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Welcome to Country by Joy Murphy and Lisa Kennedy

The Boundless Sublime by Lili Wilkinson

Run, Pip, Run by J.C. Jones

All My Treasures: A Book of Joy by Jo Witek and Christine Roussey

The World’s Worst Children by David Walliams and Tony Ross

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

Quidditch Through the Ages by J. K. Rowling

Charlie and the War Against the Grannies by Alan Brough

…

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

Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty

Amazinger Face by Zoe Foster

Open House Melbourne 2016

The North Water by Ian McGuire

When the Music’s Over by Peter Robinson

The Dry by Jane Harper

The Black Widow by Daniel Silva

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

The eight Harry Potter story was released yesterday at exactly 9.01am and we celebrated with…

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Yesterday we celebrated the release of the eighth Harry Potter story. As part of the festivities, we invited readers to share their favourite Harry Potter memories, and here are just a few of the messages we loved best…

Harry Potter taught a small 11 year old dyslexic girl to read. Thank you. – A 25 year old.

I still remember the first time I read about Dumbledore’s death at the hands of Snape + being in absolute shock!

“After all…

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I feel very lucky that my time on Earth coincides with that of Maxine Beneba Clarke’s and her powerful talent. August brings us her much-anticipated memoir, The Hate Race, our Book of the Month. This book is a confronting story about the lived experience of racism in Australia. It’s honest, shocking, and will provide readers with an alarmingly familiar depiction of the casual and overt racism commonplace in the Australia of the 1980s and 90s. It should therefore make…

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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.

Stella Charls is reading You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott

I seem to have spent a lot of time on this blog raving about Megan Abbott (see here and here). I only discovered her work last year and I subsequently felt obligated to share her with pretty much everyone I’ve crossed…

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