Our latest blog posts

What we're reading: Justine Larbalestier, Maggie Nelson and Sulari Gentill

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.

Lian Hingee is reading My Sister Rosa by Justine Larbalestier

I’ve been wanting to read Justine Larbalestier’s My Sister Rosa since it started doing the rounds with my workmates at the beginning of this year. This story of Che, a young man trying to keep the world safe from his pathological younger sister…

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10 books for Mother's Day (that aren't pink)

Sometimes Mother’s Day gift ideas can feel a little too same-y. Some mothers like horror! And politics! And sport! Here is a list of books to buy a mother for Mother’s Day that aren’t about cooking, child-rearing, baking, gardening, heartbreak or personal triumph.

From the Outer edited by Nicole Hayes and Alicia Sometimes

In this terrific anthology dedicated to AFL, Nicole Hayes and Alicia Sometimes bring together 30 personal stories from unexpected voices: those who are female, Indigenous or gay…

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Literary bundle ideas from our Faber 3-for-2 offer

Throughout April, we’re offering a special offer on a select range of award-winning and popular Faber titles – buy two books, and receive a third book for free. Find out more here.

Here are some suggestions for which three books to buy – based on what kind of book you’re looking for.

Smart fiction exploring family dynamics

Suggested bundle…

Family Life by Akhil Sharma

Bark by Lorrie Moore

Swimming Home by Deborah Levy

Why…

These three novels all explore…

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Great reads for tweens becoming teens

by Bronte Coates

Bridging the gap between middle fiction books and young adult books can be tricky for readers. Here are some books that speak to those late childhood and early teen years. (As an added bonus, many of the authors listed here have terrific backlists to dive into if they prove a hit with your young reader.)

TRICKY RELATIONSHIPS

Tweens are often coming to terms with shifting friendships and first crushes – as well as growing independence and responsibility in familial roles…

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Best Translated Book Award shortlist 2016

The ten fiction finalists and six poetry finalists for this year’s Best Translated Book Awards have been announced.

These sixteen finalists represent an incredible array of writing styles and reputation. These titles were selected from the nearly 570 works of fiction and poetry published in English translation in 2015 and are translated from nine different languages and thirteen different countries.

Fiction:

A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa, translated by Daniel Hahn (Portuguese, Angola)

Arvida by Samuel Archibald…

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Five reasons we love The Cat With the Coloured Tail by Gillian Mears

by Holly Harper

The Cat with the Coloured Tail is one of the six books shortlisted for this year’s Readings Children’s Book Prize. Here are five reasons why we think it’s brilliant.

1. It’s lovely and life-affirming.

Mr Hooper has a magical cat with a colour-changing tail, and the two of them use their unusual magic to bring colour to the lives of the people around them. They spend their days selling moon-creams (these are like ice-creams with the power to make sad…

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Brilliant new novels featuring dysfunctional families

Here at Readings we love stories that explore difficult families dynamics – from Leo Tolstoy’s enduring story of Anna Karenina, to the shifting allegiances and political manoeuvres in George R.R. Martin’s bloodthirsty Game of Thrones series; from a tense dinner between two brothers in Herman Koch’s The Dinner to an overbearing, erratic father in Christina Stead’s Australian classic The Man Who Loved Children.

Here are some recent new releases featuring even more wonderful, fantastic stories about dysfunctional families…

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Charlotte Wood wins the 2016 Stella Prize

The winner of this year’s Stella Prize is Charlotte Wood for her darkly gripping novel, The Natural Way of Things.

The Natural Way of Things is a starkly imaginative exploration of contemporary misogyny and corporate control. 10 women are imprisoned on an isolated property in the middle of Australia, and forced into hard labour in scorching heat. While initially given no explanation for their imprisonment, it soon becomes clear that each has been involved in a public sex scandal…

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Viet Thanh Nguyen wins the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

Viet Thanh Nguyen has been awarded the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his astonishing debut novel, The Sympathizer.

Part satire, part espionage thriller and part historical fiction, The Sympathizer opens at the end of the Vietnam War and follows a communist spy as he travels between Vietnam and America – eventually ending up on a film set that could have been where Francis Ford Coppola filmed Apocalypse Now.

Nguyen, who lives in Los Angeles, was born in…

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The Ledger Award recipients 2016

The Ledger Awards are prizes awarded to acknowledge excellence in Australian comic art and publishing. Named after pioneering Australian cartoonist Peter Ledger (1945–1994), the Ledger Awards were first held in 2005. Find out more here.

Here is a list of award recipients for 2016.

Gold Ledger

Neomad: The Complete Collection by Sutu, The Love Punks and Satellite Sisters

Silver Ledger

Anders and the Comet by Gregory Mackay

Black Magick #1-3 by Nicola Scott (artist), Chiara Arena (colour assists), Greg…

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