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Photos from our tour of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre
In 2015, The Readings Foundation is sponsoring the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC).
We recently went for a tour of the Centre and reflecting on the space, our managing director Mark Rubbo wrote that: ‘Our little group was immediately impressed by how comfortable it felt – one of us even commented, “Everyone’s so nice!”.’
You can read more about the tour (as well as some of the other projects The Readings Foundation is involved with this year) here. And…
How to donate to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre
In 2015, The Readings Foundation is sponsoring the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC). Here, we share some information about how their donations work.
More than half of the clients using services provided by ASRC have no income at all, and nearly 90% live below the poverty line. The centre’s Food and Aid Network responds to this destitution through the in-house provision of essential items. Asylum seeker members can also visit the Foodbank which operates on a ‘supermarket model’ and allows…
Mark's Say, April 2015
One of the things we’ve been doing recently is visiting some of the organisations that The Readings Foundation has supported. Since 2012 the Foundation has sponsored the Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowships. Writers are given a desk at the Wheeler Centre and a small stipend; it’s a great initiative from this exciting cultural organisation. We met up with some of last year’s alumni and heard about their projects. Kyoko’s House by Yukio Mishima had never been translated into English and…
Our top ten bestsellers of the week
Mannix by Brenda Niall
Dear Life - On Caring for the Elderly (Quarterly Essay 57) by Karen Hitchcock
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante (translated by Ann Goldstein)
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
One Life: My Mother’s Story by Kate Grenville
We are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
Bad Behaviour: A Memoir of Bullying and Boarding School by Rebecca Starford
Is Hot Little Hands by Abigail Ulman a good pick for book clubs?
Each month we choose a newly released book that we feel is perfect for a book club. Then we roadtest it.
Here are our thoughts on whether Abigail Ulman’s Hot Little Hands is a good pick for for book clubs.
Does the book make for good conversation?
Yes. I really enjoyed it but I can guarantee you that at least one person in your book club probably won’t – it’s that sort of a book. Provocative and interesting, with stories…
What we're reading: Ben Lerner, Becky Albertalli and Erik Larson
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.
Mark Rubbo is reading Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson
I’m reading the latest book by popular historian Erik Larson. His previous book, In the Garden of Beasts, was about Roosevelt’s Ambassador to Hitler’s Germany, William Dodd – a fascinating story; a fascinating, horrible time. His new…
A note from our Readings Monthly editor
It is always exciting when reviews begin to arrive for a new issue of the Readings Monthly. Volunteers to review Lisa Gorton’s first novel, The Life of Houses, for the April issue were numerous and swift. Readings Managing Director Mark Rubbo was the first to put his hand up by mere seconds and his review has reassured me that hype won’t be the agent of disappointment with this much-anticipated book.
One of the most wonderful things about working…
On stories of motherhood
by Emily Harms and Chris GordonEmily Harms and Chris Gordon discuss two new anthologies, Mothers & Others and Mothermorphosis, featuring women writing about their experiences of being – and not being – a mother.
Chris: Reading two books about women’s experiences of motherhood back-to-back was quite engulfing. I found myself reflecting on my kids’ birth stories quite a lot. Essentially the stories and experiences, even the short fiction included among the essays in Mothers & Others, were about the inner thoughts of women…
The 2015 Indie Award Winners
The winners of the Indie Book Awards 2015 have been announced!
Each year, independent booksellers from around the nation get together and vote for their favourite titles in four different categories, as well as their favourite book overall.
Here are the winners for each category, along with comments from booksellers across Australia and thoughts from our own staff:
The Non-Fiction winner and the overall Indie Book of the Year winner is…
The Bush: Travels in the Heart of Australia by…
Three authors that remind me of Terry Pratchett
In an attempt to cheer myself up and make myself feel a little better since my literary hero Sir Terry Pratchett passed away, I thought I’d list a few authors whose work Terry has influenced, or who simply remind me of him in their work.
Frances Hardinge
The first Frances Hardinge book I read was A Face Like Glass and the day after I finished it, I ordered every other book she’s ever written. The Pratchett influence shows in…
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