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What we're reading: Stephanie Bishop, Agatha Christie and Elizabeth Gilbert
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.
Alan Vaarwerk is reading Couch Tag by Jesse Reklaw
I’m trying to read more graphic novels at the moment, and I’m currently in the middle of Jesse Reklaw’s Couch Tag, a collection of memoir pieces about growing up in California in the 1980s. The first few pieces are told through motifs such…
Recommendations and favourite quotes from Reading Matters 2015
Last week I had my first real experience of Reading Matters, the Melbourne YA conference organised by the Centre for Youth Literature. (Previously, I had been the bookseller at the conference where the appetite for books is so high that I didn’t have time to see the panels.) Reading Matters provides high-school students, YA-lit professionals and the public with the opportunity to meet some of the most brilliant local and international stars of YA literature.
The conference was superb…
Best new crime in June
CRIME BOOK OF THE MONTH:
Before it Breaks by Dave Warner
DI Daniel Clement lives in a patchy so-called apartment on top of a supply store by the wharf, trying to piece his life back together after abandoning his excellent career in crime-prone Perth to become a DI on Western Australia’s far-northern coastline. Forsaking that life to follow his estranged wife and young daughter back to his hometown seems like the right thing to do, but Clement feels ostracised from…
Ali Smith wins the 2015 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction
Ali Smith has been named this year’s winner of the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, for her sixth novel How To Be Both.
Chair of Judges Shami Chakrabarti said: ‘Ancient and modern meet and speak to each other in this tender, brilliant and witty novel of grief, love, sexuality and shape-shifting identity.’
Borrowing from painting’s fresco technique to make an literary double-take, How To Be Both is a fast-moving genre-bending conversation between forms, times, truths and fictions. Two tales…
The Kibble and Dobbie Literary Awards Shortlists 2015
Congratulations to all the authors shortlisted for this year’s Kibble and Dobbie Literary Awards.
The Kibble and Dobbie Literary Awards are open to Australian women writers who have published a book of fiction or non-fiction classifiable as ‘life writing’.
Here is the shortlist for the $30,000 Kibble Literary Award (for an established author):
Warning: The Story of Cyclone Tracy by Sophie Cunningham – Read our review
This House of Grief by Helen Garner – Read our review
Photos from last night's launch of Steven Carroll new novel
We had so much fun at the launch of Forever Young – the new novel from acclaimed author Steven Carroll, winner of the Prime Minister’s Award and the Miles Franklin Award. Here are some photos from the night.
Jason Steger said a few words about Steven’s work
Steven gave a lovely thank you speech
The shop was packed
Emily Bitto and Antoni Jach
Shane Maloney brought his dog along to enjoy the festivities!
Readings staff member Tom Hoskins played Bob…
Our featured writer for June: Zoë Norton Lodge
Every month, we do a spotlight feature on one Australian author on our blog and Zoë Norton Lodge is our chosen author for June. Her debut book, Almost Sincerely, is a laugh-out-loud collection of stories about her life and family in Annandale, Sydney.
What’s the book about?
The stories in Almost Sincerely – about neighbourhood warfare, wacky relatives, quashed dreams and facial disfigurement – are told with Norton Lodge’s characteristic comic verve and eye for absurdity and menace. Their…
Read an excerpt from Almost Sincerely by Zoë Norton Lodge
by Zoë Norton LodgeZoë Norton Lodge is the author of Almost Sincerely. Here is an extract from her book: ‘The Red Light’.
A little fly buzzed its way around the room. It bounced from wall to table to wall and then it flew up to the top of the cupboard and settled next to the flashing red light. It nestled itself down next to the red light and it said to me, ‘Zoë, see this red light? This red light is probably…
Zoë Norton Lodge on storytelling and performance
by Zoë Norton LodgeZoë Norton Lodge is the author of Almost Sincerely. Here she tells us about how she came to write her book, and her love of storytelling.
My book is a series of short stories about me, my family and the place I grew up – a suburb in Sydney called Annandale. Taking the maxim ‘write what you know’ to uncomfortable extremes, I have literally just written about people I know and stuff that happened to me. In that sense…
The last five books I've read
by Zoë Norton LodgeZoë Norton Lodge is the author of Almost Sincerely. Here she tells us the last five books she read, and how she rated them.
The very last thing I read was the Magna Carta. Would not recommend. V boring. 1 Star. Does have some highlights – like how we should measure booze and the right to a fair trial, but otherwise it’s a snoozefest.
The last book I read was The President’s Desk by Shaun Micallef. It’s a mish-mash…
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