Martin Shaw

When my colleague Bronte asked me to write a list of my ‘ten favourite books published over the course of my career at Readings’, I admit that I (audibly) groaned. How on earth was I going to be able to…

Martin Shaw reports back from the Leading Edge Books and Australian Book Industry Award 2015 conferences. So we’re all fresh from our annual conference which, as ever, re-charged the bookselling batteries with previews of the many highlights on the literary…

Well what a frenetic time it’s been in the book world in recent weeks! We’ve had the announcement of the Stella Prize to our near Carlton neighbour Emily Bitto for her debut novel The Strays; the award of the…

I must say I’ve been having a good run of late with the first book I read in any given year. Last year, for instance, I was gushing about Maxine Beneba Clarke’s Foreign Soil – so it’s been gratifying to…

Rebecca Starford’s Bad Behaviour: A Memoir of Bullying and Boarding School is generating much excitement at Readings. After numerous sleep-deprived staff members turned up to work unable to think or speak of anything else, Martin Shaw decided to go straight…

February is already a tremendous month. On the fiction front James Bradley returns after a lengthy spell between books with a wonderful novel entitled Clade. As many of you may know, James is a regular book reviewer, so when…

Here is my panoramic survey of titles on the horizon for later in the year – rather a feast, I’m sure you’ll agree! From this (of course very early) vantage point I have the following on my radar: Australian fiction…

Suddenly, it’s the end of the year and time for lots of bookish gift-giving! To help you in that regard, we’ve created a number of top ten lists in various categories from a rather wonderful year of new releases. (Find…

Well just the other day we announced the winner of the inaugural Readings New Australian Writing Award, which goes to Sydneysider Ceridwen Dovey for Only the Animals. I was genuinely thrilled by this, her second published work: Michelle de…

A couple of years back I had the honour of judging the Commonwealth Book Prize for a best first book. When it came to final deliberations, it was an almost unbearable choice between two of the regional winners: Lisa O’Donnell’s…

Shortly after you read this column, the shortlist for the Man Booker Prize 2014 will be announced. Due to a quirk in the prize’s eligibility criteria (namely, to allow not-yet-published works), several of the longlistees are only just now being…

It’s been a sombre couple of weeks in the Australian book trade, with two tragic passings: the highly respected Melbourne novelist, critic and educator Liam Davison (on the ill-fated MH17); and Matt Richell, the widely admired CEO of Hachette Australia…