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.

Alexandra Mathew is reading Laurinda by Alice Pung

I wish I’d read Alice Pung’s Laurinda eleven years ago when I was still sixteen and trying to navigate the roller coaster of emotions experienced during year ten. Although my high school was a veritable paradise compared to the setting of the novel, Pung has…

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Here are four upcoming Australian book-to-TV-&-film adaptations that have our staff excited! (Three are supported by Screen Australia and one is an overseas production…)

Joe Cinque’s Consolation: A True Story of Death, Grief and the Law by Helen Garner

A film adaptation of Helen Garner’s classic true crime story has received funding from Screen Australia. Garner – who has read an early draft of the screenplay written by Matt Rubinstein and Sotiris Dounoukos – said: ‘(Dounoukos’) whole attitude to the…

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Sometimes one book just isn’t enough! Readings staff share the series they love.

Neapolitan novels by Elena Ferrante (translated by Ann Goldstein)

There are four novels in Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan series (the last of which will be published in 2015) but together the works read like one long master take.

Elena and Lila grow up in a neighbourhood ruled by the Camorra – where violence pervades every action and every word. I have yet to read a better work on…

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For a voracious reader who ploughs through everything…

Egg and Spoon by Gregory Maguire ($24.95): A rich and layered fantasy set in Tsarist Russia. Told with wry humour, this is the story of a girl from the impoverished countryside who accidentally swaps places with the daughter of a wealthy noble family.

Song For a Scarlet Runner by Julie Hunt ($15.99): The winner of the Reading Children’s Book Prize takes place in a totally absorbing fantasy landscape and follows the adventures…

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Suddenly, it’s the end of the year and time for lots of bookish gift-giving! To help you in that regard, we’ve created a number of top ten lists in various categories from a rather wonderful year of new releases. (Find these lists here.)

Of course, these lists are intended just as much to help you with gifts to yourself, as the prospect of summer is, for many of us, a chance to tackle those books we didn’t quite get…

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We Should All be Feminists ($9.99) by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Argued in the same observant, witty and clever prose that has made Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie a best-selling novelist, here is one remarkable author’s exploration of what it means to be a woman today.

Salad Days ($9.99) by Ronnie Scott

In Salad Days, Ronnie Scott interrogates our current obsession with food – and asks whether it’s actually such a bad thing. If food offers us a ‘curious mixture between comfort…

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‘I come from the Stanislavski school of writing,’ said Hilton Als, delivering a keynote on ‘The Role of the Critic’ in 2010. ‘You become the subject.’

A theatre critic for the New Yorker since 2002, it’s no surprise that performance metaphors abound in Als’s essays too. But the notion of the non-fiction writer embodying their subject as an actor would is radical, profoundly shifting the way we define the designation. Isn’t acting always a fiction? Stanislavski’s revolutionary approach taught performers…

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Congratulations to the winners of the 2014 ARIA Awards!

Here is the full list of winners:

Sia,
Album of the year
Best female artist
Best pop release
Best video for Chandelier (Directed by Sia and Daniel Askill)

Chet Faker,
Best male artist
Best independent release

Sheppard,
Best group

Iggy Azalea,
Breakthrough artist

5 Seconds of Summer, She Looks So Perfect
Song of the year

Neil Finn and Paul Kelly,
Best adult contemporary album

John Butler Trio,
Best blues and roots…

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Our wise bookseller Agatha answers all your tricky questions. If you have a question for Agatha please email [email protected].

I’m obsessed with the podcast Serial and am so disappointed they’re taking a break this week. But (sigh) I’ve decided to turn this event into a positive and use the time to read something that will complement my listening of it. What would you suggest?

Buzzfeed recently published an article about why Janet Malcolm’s The Journalist and the Murderer is…

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If you’re looking for Christmas books that feature new Australian stories:

Please note, Tea and Sugar Christmas is now out of stock at Readings and more stock cannot be supplied in time for Christmas.

Christmas books can get a bit samey, so when an original idea pops up you take notice. I can remember the moment I heard about Tea and Sugar Christmas.

I was at a children’s literature conference in May and happened to be standing next to…

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