Our latest blog posts

Mark's Say: The city of Melbourne and its booksellers

by Mark Rubbo

Melbourne is one of five UNESCO Cities of Literature, inducted in 2008. One of the pitches to obtain this status was the vibrancy of Melbourne’s bookselling landscape – since that time at least 10 bookshops have closed within the City of Melbourne, with many more closed in the suburbs and regional areas. Six years hence, the State Government and City of Melbourne are about to announce a jointly funded office for the City of Literature to manage and promote Melbourne’s…

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The Readings Foundation supports Reading Out of Poverty

The Readings Foundation is supporting Reading Out of Poverty’s pilot project in Geelong through a grant of $15,000.

Reading Out of Poverty is a volunteer based organisation that is working with the community to improve the early-literacy skills of disadvantaged children aged 6 months to 8 years in Victoria.

The ability to read has a direct impact on educational success, employment and dependency and is key to overcoming poverty. With the financial support of The Readings Foundation, we will provide…

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What we're reading

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.

Kim is reading The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah late last year and absolutely adored it. Coincidentally, I had begun reading it days before Beyoncé released her surprise ‘visual album’ and was delighted to hear the author sampled on one of the album’s standout…

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Come along to the Children’s Book Festival

by Chris Gordon

The Children’s Book Festival returns to the State Library of Victoria on Sunday 23 March, a festival where authors are celebrities - and rightly so.

It’s a big day, no doubt about it. There are noises, kids, prams, balloons, fairy costumes, various attached ears, and plenty of face-painted princesses, spiders and ogres. There are also over-excited (or at times under-excited) parents, always over-excited children, mascots, giveaways, music - and that’s just at the Readings tent. The Children’s Book Festival is…

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A beginner’s guide to reading graphic novels

by Bronte Coates

If you’re interested in reading a graphic novel but not sure where to start, here are some recommendations depending on what kind of books you usually gravitate towards.

If you like short-story collections:

Lisa Hanawalt’s comics in her debut collection My Dirty Dumb Eyes are bizarre and colourful, and most importantly – very, very funny.

In Heads Or Tails, Lilli Carre gives us a collection of comics that are akin to the gothic narratives of Flannery O’Connor and Carson…

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Last week's top ten bestsellers

Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Little Golden Book by Diane Muldrow

The News: A User’s Manual by Alain de Botton

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan

Barracuda by Christos Tsiolkas

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

My Age of Anxiety by Scott Stossel

Stoner: A Novel by John Williams

Editor of the iconic Little Golden Books Diane…

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What we're reading

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 is reading In the Morning I’ll be Gone by Adrian McKinty

I’ve just finished Melbourne author Adrian McKinty’s In the Morning I’ll be Gone. The book follows Sean Duffy, a detective with the Royal Ulster Constabulary who’s brought back from disgrace by MI5 to help find an escaped IRA bomber

Duffy…

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The Stella Prize Longlist 2014

The Stella Prize longlist for 2014 was announced today and includes twelve titles - six works of fiction and six works of non-fiction.

The Stella Prize celebrates Australian women’s contribution to literature and was awarded for the first time last year to Carrie Tiffany for Mateship with Birds. The prize is worth $50,000.

In alphabetical order of author surname, the 2014 Stella Prize longlist is:

Letter to George Clooney by Debra Adelaide (Picador) Read our review

Moving Among Strangers

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Attempting handmade loafs with Dan Lepard

by Bronte Coates

I first learnt how to make a very basic bread a few years ago while living in a rickety Queenslander where if you kneaded the dough with too much vigour the floorboards would shake. Since then, bread has become one my favourite things to make in a kitchen, though I can’t say I’ve ever progressed past novice stage. My ‘bread’ still frequently suffers from an alarming similarity to cakes, though I do think I make pretty good pizza dough. This…

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