A note before I begin… This month a sudden influx of brilliant, varied picture books meant that I felt compelled to write a separate blog post about them. If you’re a picture book lover, whatever age, you can find my write-up here.

Moving along now into books for independent readers… I’ve seen how incredibly loyal children are once a book captures their imagination, which explains the phenomenal success of many series. It’s the comfort of the familiar world, I…

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Picture books are for everybody at any age, not books to be left behind as we grow older. - Anthony Browne

We couldn’t agree more. And although Readings’ already has a list of collective favourites (see our 30 Essential Picture Books here) it’s always cause for celebration when some new notable picture books catch our eye. Here are 10 recent picture books we’d love to recommend to you, each one tied to a theme.

On independence:

A House Of…

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Bronte Coates talks with journalist and television presenter Geraldine Doogue about her new book featuring conversations with Australian women in power.

In The Climb, you explore how women are represented at the top levels of power in Australia. What prompted you to approach this topic?

I was very angry around the time of Julia Gillard’s demise at some of the references to her – especially from people like Alan Jones. When he attributed her father’s death to shame at…

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To celebrate our our inaugural New Australian Writing (NAW) Award shortlist, we’re running a NAW Reading Challenge!

This is week one of the challenge and participants have read The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane. Here are their responses to the novel (Ed. note: may contain spoilers!).

Jill says:

As my grandmother grew older, she became increasingly convinced that someone was breaking into her house and stealing things. The boundaries of her world, her possessions, her home, even…

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Ask our wise bookseller Agatha all your tricky (book-related) questions.

Is the book actually always better than the film? Or is that just a myth invented by book lovers?

Yes. I’m sorry to have to tell you this but the book is always better than the film.

I only read novels, but lately I’ve found myself increasingly bored, stuck in a rut of reading the same thing over and over. I want to diversify and try some non-fiction. Can you…

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Vulpes first came to me while running, when my playlist rolled onto The Futureheads’ cover of Kate Bush’s ‘Hounds of Love’. The idea was almost fully-formed before I made it home, which wasn’t long – I was never committed to running anyway. The fox in the song is passive, dying, but I have a tendency to think in a contradictory manner; antonyms come to mind before synonyms, and I began to imagine a fox that was defiant when facing death…

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This House of Grief: The Story of a Murder Trial by Helen Garner

The Children Act by Ian McEwan

A Rightful Place: Race, Recognition and a More Complete Commonwealth (Quarterly Essay 55) by Noel Pearson

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami

We are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell

The Book of Paul: The Wit and Wisdom of Paul Keating by Russell Marks

The Paying Guests by…

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It must have been late on some Saturday afternoon (foolishly) driving on Punt Road, the traffic backed up, the city engaged in a giant logistical pantomime of cars and trains and everywhere people in team colors, all jammed together, inching along, when the idea for The Family Men first came to me. A friend of mine had been working on a verse novel, and I was seeing the world through a scrim of metaphors and half-rhyme, time slowing and expanding…

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How to Be Both by Ali Smith

I’m immediately engaged by the cover of Ali Smith’s How to Be Both, probably because of its clean use of type paired with a nice image, a design decision I’m particularly partial to. On the front cover is a photograph of Sylvie Vartan and Françoise Hardy – two French pop singers involved in the yé-yé movement that emerged in France, Italy and Spain in the early 1960s. As How to Be Both…

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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.

Nina is reading The Actress by Amy Sohn

I’m reading Amy Sohn’s The Actress, the story of a young up-and-coming actress who falls into a romance with an older, charismatic movie star. Throw in some dark secrets, relationship drama and Hollywood glamour and the whole thing sounds sounds a little like a…

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