Belle Place

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…

Vogliamo Tutto (We Want Everything) by Nanni Balestrini This book from Italian writer Nanni Balestrini was first published in 1971. Vogliamo Tutto (We Want Everything) focuses on the ‘hot autumn of 1969’ that started with a big strike at Fiat,…

Belle Place interviews Sophie Cunningham about her new work of non-fiction. This year marks 40 years since Cyclone Tracy hit Darwin on Christmas Eve – what is your motivation for wanting to write this book now? I have always been…

Given the sizeable number of new releases that arrive in store each month, here are notes from the Readings editorial office on books you might have missed in July. Skylight by José Saramago Jose Saramago first submitted Skylight to a…

We can get very excited about book covers in the Readings office – the book as object is our trade, after all. Here are our favourite covers for July fiction titles The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. by Adelle Waldman…

Given the sizeable number of new releases that arrive in store each month, here are notes from the Readings editorial office on books you might have missed in June. Family Life by Akhil Sharma This is Akhil Sharma’s brilliant second…

Your regular columnist, Martin Shaw, was holidaying in Germany last month, young family and reading material in tow, which leaves me the pleasure of reporting on bookish news from the southern hemisphere for July. Far removed from the European continent…

Belle Place talks with Michaela McGuire about her new work of true crime. Your book hinges on the case of Anthony Dunning, the 40-year-old man who was pinned to the floor of Crown casino by security staff and who later…

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…

Working with books is wonderful, for all the obvious reasons, but it’s our most common complaint that there is never enough time to read everything we would like – including the ones we quickly insist friends, family and acquaintances should…

What I Loved is Siri Hustvedt’s third novel, published a decade ago now, and set in New York, opening in 1975. It follows Leo Hertzberg, an art historian teaching at Columbia, who forms a life-long friendship with artist Bill Wechsler…

Our new editor of I have been reading Dalmon Galgut’s quietly frightening In a Strange Room. Presented in three parts, the book follows a lone traveller, also named Dalmon, as he moves through India, Greece and Africa. Each part…