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.

Ann Le Lievre is reading A Small Madness by Dianne Touchell

I love our Aussie young adult authors and my recent experience of reading Western Australian author Dianne Touchell’s A Small Madness was explosive. This book has made me feel as if my heart has been slammed up against a wall. The central…

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Valentine’s Day has never meant much to me and as an adult I’ve always had partners who’ve agreed it’s far too commercial. We have consciously avoided ‘the day’ and instead, unconsciously done special things for each other during the year. As a teenager though, I do remember sending a Valentine to a boy I fancied in the trumpet section of a band I was playing in. I got a secret thrill wondering if he’d received it and hoping he knew…

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There’s a stunning young adult anthology out this month. Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean is a collaboration between editors Kirsty Murray (The Year It All Ended), Anita Roy and Payal Dhar, featuring speculative fiction (including six graphic stories) from Australian and Indian authors. From the Australian contingent we’ve got Isobelle Carmody (Obernewtyn), Penni Russon (Only Ever Always), Justine Larbalestier (Razorhurst), Margo Lanagan (Sea Hearts), Alyssa Brugman (Alex As…

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The Stella Prize longlist for 2015 was announced today! The $50,000 prize is awarded for the best work of literature, fiction or non-fiction, published in 2014 by an Australian woman.

The twelve longlisted books are:

Foreign Soil by Maxine Beneba Clarke – Read our review

The Strays by Emily Bitto – Read our review

Only the Animals by Ceridwen Dovey – Read our review

This House of Grief by Helen Garner – Read our review

Golden Boys by Sonya Hartnett…

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Chris Gordon interviews Sofija Stefanovic about her new short book

I thought

Thanks very much! It’s the first big thing I’ve had published, so it’s really nice to hear you say you liked it. And yeah, it’s sad, the world of romance scams. People fall in love and are punished for it very badly.

I know you met Bill, the main subject matter, when working in TV. What made you expand his story?

Bill and I have been friends for…

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MOVE 1.

Summer, St Kilda. Strolling Acland Street, you dispose of your empty frozen yoghurt cup and peel off into Readings Books. The store’s cool interior is a welcome respite from the cramming heat outside: perfect conditions for browsing. You clock the new releases, turn the latest Murakami over in your hands. It’s a lovely object, though not what you’re after today. You saunter around a bit in happy indecision, leafing through this, admiring that. Then something catches your eye…

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I am teaching a creative writing subject this semester about short fiction. I’ve tutored in this subject a few times over the years, and I love it. Lots of grist in the reader: Chekhov, Faulkner, Garner, Munro. I can keep coming back to these stories and finding new ways into them. And short fiction is good to teach: literary techniques jump right out at you, there’s nowhere for them to hide. In novels you tend to have to search for…

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A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler

The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan

We are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

The Brain’s Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity by Norman Doidge

The Story of A Prime Minister: Paul Keating by David Day

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante (translated by Ann Goldstein)

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

Plenty More by Yotam Ottolenghi

Olive…

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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.

Chris Somerville is reading The Verificationist by Donald Antrim

Currently I’m reading Donald Antrim’s third novel, which is about twenty psychoanalysts meeting in a pancake restaurant. When the narrator, Tom, tries to instigate a food fight one of his dinner companions forces him into a bear hug, resulting in Tom leaving his body…

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I want to talk about why a Nick Cave song should never have featured in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 and why never the twain should have met.

So first things first… How is it that Harry and Hermione are dancing in a barren landscape to ‘O’ Children’ by Nick Cave when:

a.) This section is not even in the book
b.) We know Harry doesn’t love Hermione
c.) We know Hermione doesn’t love Harry
d.) We…

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