Here’s our mid-festival update from this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival. Staff share what their thoughts on what they’ve seen so far, and tell us what they’re still looking forward to. (You can find the full program here).

Nina Kenwood’s favourite film (so far) has been The Wolfpack

To date, I’ve seen four films at MIFF, and I’ve adored them all.

I watched three documentaries: Do I Sound Gay?, The Cult of JT Leroy and The Wolfpack.

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This Saturday 8 August is National Bookshop Day – an annual celebration of bookshops across the country. And we’d love you to come by one of our five shops and join in the fun.

If you’re a coffee lover as well as book lover, you’re in luck…

On the day, we’ll be offering 10% off all full-priced books to any customer who presents a coffee cup from Market Lane Coffee that features a special Oslo Davis bike illustration (see image…

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Introducing one of the most exciting Australian children’s books of the year – The Hush Treasure Book – which showcases our finest children’s book illustrators and authors.

Readings is thrilled to be hosting an event to celebrate the Hush Music Foundation’s latest creative endeavour – a treasury of funny and moving illustrated stories by some of Australia’s finest children’s book authors and artists, published by Allen and Unwin. This free event will be held at our Hawthorn store on Saturday…

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The Australia Council was formed in 1967 by then Prime Minister Harold Holt and it was given statutory authority by the Whitlam government in 1975. Modelled on the successful Canada Council, it took on many of its features including arms-length funding to organisations and artists decided by groups of peers. Over its life it has periodically suffered attacks from many sectors in the community; unsuccessful applicants accuse it of being cliquey, commentators such as Andrew Bolt have accused it of…

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James Halliday Wine Companion 2016 by James Halliday

Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee

Island Home: A Landscape Memoir by Tim Winton (All these sales were pre-orders.)

Millie Marotta’s Tropical Wonderland: A Colouring Book Adventure by Millie Marotta

The Mindfulness Colouring Book: Anti-Stress Art Therapy for Busy People by Emma Farrarons

The Girl With the Dogs by Anna Funder

A Guide to Berlin by Gail Jones

Gut: the Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Under-Rated Organ by Giulia Enders

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Professionally, you’d have to be a little short of Earth logic to give your heart away to young adult (YA) fiction in this country. The challenges come from all sides.

You’re up against industry snobbery, for a start, despite the fact that children’ and YA books as a category is that rare beast: a print publishing and bookselling growth area. Martin Amis skimmed us a casual slur in 2011, summing up many people’s inside-thoughts: ‘If I had a serious…

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Every month, we do a spotlight feature on an Australian author and Rachel Hills is our chosen author for August. Her new book, The Sex Myth: The Gap Between Our Fantasies and Reality, will change the way you think about your sex life.

What’s the book about?

Fifty years after the sexual revolution, we are told that we live in a time of unprecedented sexual freedom; that, if anything, we are too free now. But beneath the veneer of…

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Equal parts social commentary, pop culture, and personal anecdotes, The Sex Myth: The Gap Between Our Fantasies and Reality will change the way you think about your sex life. Here’s an extract from the book’s introduction.

When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I was consumed by sex. Not by the physical urge to have it, although I had my share of crushes and unfulfilled desires. Nor was I overly concerned with the particulars of how I…

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Rachel Hills is the author of The Sex Myth: The Gap Between Our Fantasies and Reality. Here she talks about why she felt it was important to write about this idea.

As soon as the idea for The Sex Myth came to me, I knew it was ‘the one’. I’d flirted with other ideas for books before, ranging from the not-particularly-original (a collection of essays pontificating on contemporary feminist issues) to the thank-god-I-never-actually-pitched-that (a series of interviews with inspiring…

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Rachel Hills is the author of The Sex Myth: The Gap Between Our Fantasies and Reality. Here she tells us the last five books she read.

Only Ever Yours by Louise O’Neill

Louise and I have followed each other on Twitter for about a year, and after seeing the fantastic reviews her book was getting in her native Ireland, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it once it was published internationally. Only Ever Yours weighs in at…

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