Our latest blog posts

Our Queer book club reading list for 2016

The Queer Book Club returns to Readings St Kilda this year! This book club is dedicated to fiction and select non-fiction books that represent aspects of LGBTIQ life.

Here, book club convener Amy Vuleta shares the club’s very ambitious reading list for 2016…

A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale

A privileged elder son, and stammeringly shy, Harry Cane has followed convention at every step. Even the beginnings of an illicit, dangerous affair do little to shake the foundations of…

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10 must-read authors from Adelaide Writers' Week

by Stella Charls

Our marketing and events coordinator Stella Charls shares her top picks of who to see – and, if you can’t attend, who to read – from Adelaide Writers’ Week this year.

Fiona McFarlane

Fiona McFarlane’s extraordinary debut novel, The Night Guest, introduced a major literary talent and was shortlisted for multiple prizes including the Stella and Miles Franklin. Most recently she has published a collection of short stories, The High Places.

Find out which Festival events McFarlane is

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Six of the best books to read aloud

by Lian Hingee

‘You’re never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child’ – Dr Seuss

Recent studies have shown the importance of reading aloud to kids; even once they’ve started reading to themselves. It’s not just a great bonding experience, but one that is important for building literacy, developing vocabularies, increasing attention span, and encouraging children to see reading as a pleasure rather than a chore.

In honour of World Read Aloud Day

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Princesses who don't play by the rules

by Holly Harper

It’s a frequent complaint from our customers: ‘I’m bored with buying pink, sparkly princess books, but my child loves them.’ Well, princesses may be a necessary evil in the world of kids’ literature, but this doesn’t mean all of them are pink and sparkly. Here is a collection of our favourite princesses who are a bit more switched on than your average frog kisser.

The Princess and the Pony by Kate Beaton

Princess Pinecone is sick and tired of being…

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What we're reading: Elizabeth Strout, Kirsty Eagar and Larissa Behrendt

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.

Leanne Hall is reading Summer Skin by Kirsty Eagar

I’ve just finished reading Kirsty Eagar’s new YA novel. This is an up-close look at university residential college life with all its messiness, hooking up, friendship pacts, tribal behaviour, part-time jobs, exams, and yes, plenty of drinking. Eagar zooms in on intimacy, sex, sexism…

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Our predictions for Harry Potter And The Cursed Child

Fans farewelled Harry Potter as he waved goodbye to his children at the start of the school year, nineteen years after the battle of Hogwarts. But his story didn’t end there…

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the official rehearsal script for the West End stage play and will continue on from where the novels finished. Here are our (admittedly, rather unlikely) predictions of what will happen in the new story.

“Harry’s wife Ginny has died (sorry!) and he’s…

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Fascinating fiction about climate change

Climate fiction, or climate change fiction, usually abbreviated to cli-fi (modelled on the rhyming sounds of ‘sci-fi’) is a literary genre that deals with climate change. Here are some of our top picks.

The World Without Us by Mireille Juchau

Told from the perspective of six, interconnected characters, The World Without Us is a tale of love in all its forms, a mystery, and an elegy for a denatured landscape. This astonishing novel was recently named the winner of the…

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Contemporary antidotes to terrible classics

by Lian Hingee

We all have them – books that were forced on us in school; essential classics that we choked down despite hating every word; the worthy, the venerable, the WORST. Here are my favourite antidotes to those so-called ‘must-read’ classics.

Found Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre tedious?

Try Love Nina by Nina Stibbe

Between wandering the moors and making calf eyes at the (quite frankly) emotionally manipulative Mr Rochester, Jane didn’t actually seem to spend a lot of time looking after children…

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