Our latest blog posts

Q&A with Patrick Ness

by Chris Gordon

Our events manager Chris Gordon chats with Patrick Ness about his highly anticipated new YA novel, The Rest of Us Just Live Here, which will be released next Thursday 27 August.

Special note: Five lucky people who pre-order The Rest of Us Just Live Here limited edition will also receive a copy of More Than This signed by Patrick Ness. Pre-order online by Tuesday 25 August to automatically go into the draw. Only the five winners will be notified.

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Special offer on Meatballs: The Ultimate Guide

Matteo Bruno is the owner of the very popular The Meatball & Wine Bar restaurants in Melbourne, and his new book Meatballs: The Ultimate Guide contains 60 fabulous recipes for meatballs, plus recipes a further 60 recipes for sides, sauces and garnishes.

To celebrate book’s release, everyone who buys a copy of Meatballs: The Ultimate Guide from Readings before 31 August will go in the draw to win a lavish dinner for four at any of The Meatball & Wine…

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Routledge Classics 3-for-2 sale

Buy two Routledge classics in August and you’ll receive a third for free!

This is a perfect opportunity to stock up on key titles in cultural theory, philosophy, history, psychology and literary studies. There’s a great range to choose from including Michel Foucault’s Archaeology of Knowledge, bell hooks’s Outlaw Culture, Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble, Jean-Paul Sartre’s What is Literature?, Luce Irigaray’s Je, Tu, Nous: Towards a Culture of Difference, Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media – to…

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What we're reading: Ta-Nehisi Coates, Jan Bauer and Miles Allinson

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.

Emily Harms is reading Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

I really do believe that the world would be a better place if everyone read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me.

Written in the form of a letter to his adolescent son, Coates attempts to answer the big questions…

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Best new crime in August

by Fiona Hardy

CRIME BOOK OF THE MONTH:

Kingdom of the Strong by Tony Cavanaugh

Darian Richards is a lost man. A man he has hunted for years has vanished again, presumably overseas. His lover is gone. The Noosa River, the one bank of water that affords him peace, is not doing its job. Early retirement is looking like it is not for him. But then: a visitor to the cabin he has retreated to. Victorian Police Commissioner Copeland Walsh – nicknamed Copland…

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On maps in children's books (and how much we love them)

by Emily Gale

What it is about maps in children’s books that we love so much?

For me it’s the very immediate suggestion that this author has created an entire, detailed world for the reader. They’ve thought of everything, from the twists and turns of a river, to the shape of mountains. How far we are from seas or rival lands, how we might get to Rabbit’s house, or the way to walk from the nice white cottage with the thatched roof to…

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Sasha Grishin on the works of ST Gill

by Sasha Grishin

ST Gill & His Audiences is the first major comprehensive book to be devoted to this major Australian artist. Author Sasha Grishin tells us of his own experiences with Gill’s works and life, and why he was inspired to write this book.

The book is published to coincide with an exhibition currently on at State Library Victoria: Australian sketchbook: Colonial life and the art of ST Gill. Once Australia’s most popular artist and now a forgotten name, this first-ever…

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Celebrating the arrival of a new Dr Seuss book

by Angela Crocombe

A new Dr Seuss, did I hear you say?
Oh me, oh my, what a fabulous day!

Apologies for the poor rhyming verse, but its not every day you get a newly-published Dr Seuss book into the bookshop. In fact, since he died in 1991, it hasn’t happened for a very long time. Even The Bippolo Seed and Other Stories, released a few years back, was a compilation of stories previously published in magazines. So when a manuscript was…

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Which recipe is the best from Vegetables, Grains & Other Good Stuff?

On Monday we roadtested some recipes from Simon Bryant’s new cookbook, Vegetables, Grains & Other Good Stuff, in a bid to find the best one. Five of our staff selected recipes and Simon himself came in to taste their dishes.

Here are the results.

Stella Charls made Pumpkin, Chickpea and Tahini Soup (pg. 224):

We’ve just come through the middle weekend of MIFF (I’m a bit of an addict), so I’m finding my free time fairly limited and I…

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