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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.
Mikee is reading Andrew’s Brain by E. L. Doctorow
Although the subject matter of Andrew’s Brain is neurological, it’s written in a clear and concise manner. Andrew is a middle-aged academic who meanders through life in his own little world until his life is changed forever by a young woman - Briony. Doctorow…
The story of my book: The Firebird Mystery
by Darrell PittMy first love is writing, but my second love is procrastination. Writing The Firebird Mystery went something like this:
Write for ten minutes.
Go to the refrigerator and stare inside as if searching for the Lost Ark of the Covenant.
Write for five minutes.
Peer out the window, wonder why the neighbour’s garbage bins have not been collected after three days and gnash my teeth.
Write for seven minutes.
Return to the refrigerator and inspect the freezer box. If ice-cream…
20 Australian books to read in your 20s
Here are 20 Australian books to read in your 20s, everything from classic novels to sexy memoirs, from stories of share house misadventures to the IRL adventures of our most famous outlaw.
Our list isn’t definitive – we strongly encourage you to read many more books than just the ones listed here – but these are stories and characters that resonate with this particular time of life. Increasingly seen as a kind of ‘adult adolescence’, your 20s are a time…
Meet the judges of the Readings New Australian Writing Award
A few weeks ago we were delighted to announce two new literary awards in support of Australian authors, including an award for New Australian Writing. Here, we share a little background on the Readings staff – to be joined by guest judge, Hannah Kent – who form the panel of this award.
What is your role at Readings, and how long have you worked here?
I’ve been the editor of Readings Monthly for a few months shy…
Last week's top ten bestsellers
Tracks by Robyn Davidson
High on Hawthorn: The road to the 2013 premiership by Phillip Taylor
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
The Wrong Girl by Zoe Foster
The Age: Good Food Under $30 by Simone Egger
Storyteller: A Foreign Correspondent’s Memoir Like No Other by Zoe Daniel
The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
I Quit Sugar for Life: 148 Recipes + Meal Plans for Families and Solos by Sarah Wilson
Earth Hour by David Malouf
Barracuda by Christos…
Women we're reading in 2014
To celebrate International Women’s Day this Saturday 8 March, our staff share the books by women we’ve been reading in 2014. (This year also happens to be the Year of Reading Women!)
Annie Condon, Bookseller and Book Club Convenor
One of the most emotionally powerful books I’ve read recently is The Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala. ‘The Wave’ refers to the tsunami of 2004 in which Sonali lost her husband, her two sons and both her parents while holidaying…
Q&A with Mark Mulholland
Our Readings Monthly editor Belle Place interviews Irish writer Mark Mulholland about his debut novel, A Mad and Wonderful Thing, the story of an IRA sniper in the 1990s .
Your novel takes place in Dundalk, Ireland, in the 1990s. You’re from Dundalk, which explains your rich portrayal of the setting, but what drew you to explore this particular historical territory in a novel, and how much personal experience of The Troubles did you have to draw on?
I…
What I loved: Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector
My favourite books hook me with their first lines: Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing, for example, or Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin, or Carson McCullers’s The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. The best deliver an uninterrupted flow of intriguing sentences, beginning to end. Clarice Lispector’s Hour of the Star does this in a brutal, disconcerting way, while conveying its story through a scrim of self-consciousness. It is bizarre and unsettling, but full of gems; it is bleak but funny…
Our big birthday sale!
It’s our 45th birthday today and to celebrate, we’re having a HUGE online sale, offering 20% off all books on our website, for one day only!
The terms and conditions of the special offer are as follows: The 20% off promotion only applies to books currently listed as in stock (to see if a book is in stock, click through to the book’s page and look at the information on the right hand side – if it is listed as…
Suzanne McCourt chats to Romy Ash about The Lost Child
Suzanne McCourt’s debut novel is set in Burley Point, a quiet fishing town on Australia’s wild southern coast. Here, McCourt talks with Romy Ash about writing her young protagonist, Sylvie, and constructing the troubled narrative of a small town and a missing child.
The Lost Child is a quiet epic, spanning a decade of immense change in the lives of its characters and the small rural town of Burley Point where the novel is set. This is a book that…
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