Lian Hingee
Lian Hingee is Readings’ Digital Marketing Manager. She’s been working in books for twenty years
Reviews
The Year of the Farmer by Rosalie Ham
No one does Australian Gothic quite like Rosalie Ham. Her sun-soaked revenge fantasy, The Dressmaker, captured a particular side of rural Australia – one steeped in malice, jealousy, bitter rivalries…
The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker
Pat Barker won the Booker Prize in 1995 for Ghost Road, the third book in her trilogy about the horrors of the First World War. In The Silence of the Girls, Barker reaches much further back into hist…
Early Riser by Jasper Fforde
Jasper Fforde – master of absurdity, champion of satire, ridiculer of bureaucracy, and proud Welshman – is back. If that sentence doesn’t fill you with a thrill of excitement then you’ve obviously ne…
The Pisces by Melissa Broder
Melissa Broder is the author of So Sad Today, a powerful collection of essays about feminism, sex, love, depression, and addiction. Broder’s first novel, The Pisces, takes these topics, and explores …
The Beast’s Heart by Leife Shallcross
Everyone knows the story of the beauty and the beast, but this beautifully conceived debut from Australian writer Leife Shallcross turns the classic fairytale on its head. The Beast’s Heart is a sump…
The Handmaid’s Tale
Hulu’s elegantly produced adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s book of the same name, The Handmaid’s Tale has won a slew of awards, including the Golden Globe for Best Television Series and the Emmy for O…
The Furthest Station by Ben Aaronovitch
Ben Aaronovitch’s series of PC Grant novels are urban fantasies that somehow manage to combine the jaunty ‘ello, ‘ello, ‘ello of a traditional British police procedural with the rich mythology and hi…
The Secret Science of Magic by Melissa Keil
Melissa Keil is one of the best new voices in Australian YA fiction. Her wonderful contemporary rom-coms are always populated with a brilliant cast of well-drawn characters, and The Secret Science of…
The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel
The first adult novel from YA writer Amy Engel is an uneasy thriller set in the decaying grandeur of a rambling estate in Kansas. For three generations, the daughters of the Roanoke family have been …
Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman is no stranger to Norse mythology. His award-winning novel American Gods features both Odin and Loki as well as the legend of the World Tree, transplanted into the modern world. In Norse …
Our Chemical Hearts by Krystal Sutherland
There’s already quite a bit of buzz about Krystal Sutherland’s debut novel, with comparisons being drawn to John Green and Rainbow Rowell and a movie already in the works. It’s a big vote of confiden…
The Wonder by Emma Donoghue
Emma Donoghue is best known as the author of the Booker Prize-nominated novel, Room, which was adapted to become one of the most critically acclaimed films of 2015. In The Wonder she goes back a hund…
The Trespasser by Tana French
The wonderful thing about Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad series is that they’re all excellent, but all very different at the same time. Each book has enough familiarity to allow you to slip effort…
Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler
Shakespeare’s comedy, The Taming of the Shrew, is one of the more problematic stories for a modern reader, so I was interested to see how Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Anne Tyler addressed the deep…
Shrill by Lindy West
You might not be familiar with Lindy West’s name, but if you have even a passing familiarity with the internet you’re probably acquainted with her writing. Her eminently shareable columns deal with t…
Fellside by M.R. Carey
When Jess Moulson is found guilty of the murder of a young boy named Alex, she’s sentenced to spend the rest of her life within the walls of Fellside, a state-of-the-art, maximum security prison perc…
Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers
Like a lot of kids, my first experience of Mary Poppins was of the spit-spot, spoonful-of-sugar, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious variety. I watched the Disney musical religiously, and was infatuat…
Iris and the Tiger by Leanne Hall
Iris and the Tiger has all the hallmarks of a classic children’s novel – a reclusive relative, a labyrinthine house peopled with mysterious characters, secrets, quests, and impossible creatures, but …
News
Six new novels that blur the line between fantasy & reality
Inspired by the nineteenth century gothic novel, Melmoth the Wanderer, Sarah Perry’s Melmoth is a modern-day ghost story about a mysterious dark-robed woman who roams the globe, searching for those whose complicity and cowardice have contributed t…
The best psychological thrillers from the first half of 2018
The House Swap is a slow-burning domestic noir that will appeal to readers who enjoyed the slow unravelling of relationships in books like Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train. When the opportunity arises to participate in a house-swap, Caroline and Francis d…
Eight new retellings & reimaginings of classics
My favourite books to reread
With all the brilliant new releases coming out every month, rereading books is a bit of a luxury for booksellers. Sometimes, you just want to lose yourself in a book for a very specific reason, and in those situations nothing beats rereading an old favourite. It’s like catching up with an old friend, or eating a favourite home-made meal – both comforting and comfortable.
Here are the books that …
Popular TV shows matched to books
The HBO TV series of Game of Thrones has introduced millions of readers to George R.R. Martin’s novels. If you’ve already read all of the books in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, then grab a copy of The Name of the Wind. This wonderfully-written novel charts the ea…
Start your year with some feminist sci-fi
Naomi Alderman’s brilliant novel about the corrosive nature of power took home the 2017 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction. Set in a not-too-distant future where young women have evolved the ability generate and conduct electricity through their …
