Our latest blog posts
The Inky Awards Longlist 2015
The Centre for Youth Literature has just announced the two longlists for the Inky Awards.
The Inky Awards recognise high-quality young adult literature, with the longlist and shortlist selected by young adults, and the winners voted for online by teens. There are two awards: the Gold Inky Award for an Australian book, and the Silver Inky Award for an international book.
The Gold Longlist (Australian books)
Nona and Me by Clare Atkins
Head of the River by Pip Harry
The…
Best new crime in March
CRIME BOOK OF THE MONTH:
If She Did It by Jessica Treadway
Hanna and Joe Schutt are unsure about their awkward daughter Dawn’s first love, the handsome yet unnerving Rud, but are pleased to see their daughter happy – until the night they are viciously beaten by a croquet mallet in bed, leaving Joe dead and Hanna with facial injuries so acute that they leave her, nearly three years later, still with visible scars and a brain injury that impedes…
A tribute to Terry Pratchett
Stop all the clacks.
An entire world ended last Friday: warring countries; vibrant, huge, dirty cities; small villages settled by people with busy work-filled lives all gone. Individuals perished too: a sharp-as-nails old woman and her wicked friend; a straight-as-an-arrow cop and his big-hearted wife and son; a sixteen-year-old girl who had just discovered what love can mean. A world full of people with hopes and dreams, and love and hate, simply ceased to exist.
At least that what it…
Classic novels that are overrated
Our staff share the classic novels (and authors) they believe are overrated…
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. An unappealing heroine, a very dull story and an awful ‘love interest’ – I genuinely do not understand what people see in this classic. I do, however, very much recommend the sublime Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, which tells the story of Rochester’s wife. – Isobel Moore, bookseller at St Kilda
George Orwell’s time would have been much better spent writing more…
Kids' and young adult highlights for March
Recently there has been a more open dialogue about what it’s like to live with anxiety, which has made me think about the worries we experience as children and how, as parents or caregivers, we react to those worries. Our response to a child who is uncomfortable about a particular situation, or struggling to find their place in the world, is a great responsibility. This month there are some beautiful picture books with simple messages about how to nurture a…
Our top ten bestsellers of the week
The Abyssinian Contortionist: Hope, Friendship and Other Circus Acts by David Carlin
Skin by Ilka Tampke
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
Down To The River by SJ Finn
Bad Behaviour: A Memoir of Bullying and Boarding School by Rebecca Starford
We are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
The Happy Cookbook by Lola Berry
Hot Little Hands by Abigail Ulman
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante (translated by Ann…
Chris Gordon reflects on women in science
Earlier this week I chatted with Kate White, an internationally recognised researcher on gender in higher education, about women working in the area of science.
Specifically, we talked about why so many women choose to leave the field of science and why is it important that they stay. White’s research explores new models intended to enable younger women (and men) to have successful science careers that balance with other priorities in life. Her research supports Annabel Crabb’s theory in The…
What we're reading: Alejandro Zambra, Mary Norris and Michel Faber
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.
Stella Charls is reading The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber
When I was a teenager I precociously decided that fantasy and science fiction were for children and I was only going to read “the real stuff” from now on. I didn’t exactly know what “the real stuff” was - Love…
Introducing our writer-in-residence for March: S.J. Finn
Each month of 2015, we’ll be sharing some words from an Australian author of a new work on our blog as part on an online residency. We’re thrilled to announce that S.J. Finn is our chosen author for March!
In Down to the River, Finn explores the complex and painful territory surrounding our perception of child sex offenders and our own moral responses. In the small country town of Dungower, little goes on that local journalist Joni Miller can…
S.J. Finn shares the last five books she's read
by S.J. FinnThe five books I’ve read most recently have all been penned by Australian authors.
Although I read as widely as I can, I do love Australian literature for its form and lyrical language. Generally speaking, there is a lightness about Aussie prose (even when it’s at its most brutal) which plays on the senses in a particular way that I would loosely coin as immediacy. Staying away from explanation and living in the realm of description – like poetry –…
Browse our blog by category
