Our latest blog posts
Our top ten bestsellers of the week
Purity by Jonathan Franzen
The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante (translated by Ann Goldstein)
The Girl in the Spider’s Web by David Lagercrantz (translated by George Goulding)
Decolonizing Solidarity: Dilemmas and Directions for Supporters of Indigenous Struggles by Clare Land
Fever of Animals by Miles Allinson
Prick with a Fork: The World’s Worst Waitress Spills the Beans by Larissa Dubecki
Enchanted Forest by Johanna Basford
Make Me by Lee Child
The Secret Son by Jenny Ackland
Small Press Network - Most Underrated Book Award (MUBA) 2015 shortlist
The Most Underrated Book Award (MUBA) is presented annually to the best title released by a small, independent Australian publisher that, for whatever reason, didn’t receive its fair dues when first published.
Here are the three books shortlisted for 2015…
Funemployed by Justin Heazlewood
Funemployed goes beyond the press releases and the hype to show what it’s really like to be a working artist in Australia. Through candid interviews, brutal honesty and lacerating wit, Justin Heazlewood (aka The Bedroom Philosopher)…
What we're reading: Eliza Henry-Jones, Karen Joy Fowler and Sarai Walker
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.
Bronte Coates is reading In the Quiet by Eliza Henry-Jones
We announced the shortlist for the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction last week and I’m in the process of reading my way through the list. I want to finish all six books in time for our Shortlist Showdown, to be hosted by…
September's unmissable events for readers of children's and young adult fiction
This month we’re thrilled to be hosting two panels for readers of children’s and young adult fiction at our Hawthorn store. We’d love you to come, and here’s why…
MEET JEN STORER AND LUCINDA GIFFORD
© Lucinda Gifford, 2015, from The Fourteenth Summer of Angus Jack by Jen Storer, illustrated by Lucinda Gifford. Published by ABC Books.
You (and your children) will know Jen Storer from her bestselling Truly Tan books, the hugely fun detective series set in rural Australia…
Sarah Holland-Batt on how travel energises her poetry
by Sarah Holland-BattPoetry collections are most often gatherings of miscellanea, assemblages of thoughts and ideas and arguments curated over a period of years, textual cabinets of curiosities. This makes it difficult to think of the poetry collection as a fully unified animal – straddling, as it does, different times and places, the different selves who wrote the poems, those who were in love and those who had fallen out of it, and so forth. All of which is a roundabout way of…
Today is Indigenous Literacy Day
Today is Indigenous Literacy Day. Between 40% and 60% of Indigenous children living in very remote locations across WA, SA and NT are achieving below minimum standards in Reading in Year 3. The Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF) is working to raise the literacy levels of Indigenous Australians living in remote communities by providing access to educational materials, getting culturally appropriate books into homes and schools, and working with communities to create and publish the stories of Indigenous people. My colleague…
A visit to Tiwi Islands with the Indigenous Literacy Foundation
Emily Harms, our head of Marketing and Communications, was recently invited on a field trip to the Tiwi Islands to see the Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF) in action. She reports back here.
The Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF) has been doing incredible work since it was founded in 2004 by Riverbend Bookshop owner Suzy Wilson, with the aim of improving literacy levels in remote indigenous communities. The response from the Australian book industry was overwhelming, leading to The Foundation raising $25,000…
Finalists announced for the Melbourne Prize for Literature and Awards 2015
The finalists for the Melbourne Prize for Literature 2015 and Awards have been announced.
The Melbourne Prize runs on a three-year awards cycle, alternating between literature, music and urban sculpture. This year, the focus returns once more to books, and includes an exciting new $20,000 prize for an essay.
The $60,000 Melbourne Prize for Literature 2015 is awarded to a Victorian published author whose body of published work has made an outstanding contribution to Australian literature, as well as to…
Cook your way through Rush Oh!
by Shirley BarrettWe’re thrilled to be hosting a free event with Shirley Barrett (filmmaker and now author) this Friday 4 September. Barrett will be in conversation with critic Rebecca Harkins-Cross. Find out more here.
Here, Barrett shares some recipes and housekeeping tips which are referenced in her debut novel, Rush Oh!.
One of the pleasures of writing domestic fiction in a historical setting is the opportunity it presents to waste hours of precious writing time poring over ancient recipe books…
Mark's Say, September 2015
Last month I went to an event at our Hawthorn shop to celebrate the publication of The Hush Treasure Book. The book is a collection of original writings and illustrations by some of Australia’s leading children’s authors, and lots of the contributors came to read their stories to a huge crowd. The book comes out of the Hush Music Foundation which was established by physician Dr Catherine Crock. While working with young cancer patients at the Royal Children’s Hospital…
Browse our blog by category
