The Readings Podcast

In this episode, a conversation with Anna Heyward, animal behavioural scientist and New Yorker writer, and author of a new memoir: Living with Freddie, a book about seeing the world from the point of view of man's best – and oft misunderstood – friend, the dog. When Anna Heyward adopted a rescued Italian greyhound, she was thrilled to bring a dog into her life. But Freddie, she quickly realised, had severe separation anxiety, unable to be left alone for more than thirty seconds without crying uncontrollably, biting his own tail or scratching at his body. While some would have given the dog back, writing him off as a 'bad dog', Anna transformed her life. She took Freddie to work and hid him from her boss. Her social life withered. Her relationship with her fiancé began to flounder. She dedicated her life to entering the mind of her dog. As Anna observed Freddie's behaviour, she began to experience the world as he did: the quality of light, the timbre of sound; a leaf falling from a tree. And she changed – but not in the way you might expect. This is a meditation on what it means to be bad or good, on how much we can – or should – try to alter another being's behaviour, and on what is possible to know about another mind. But at its heart, Living With Freddie is a beautiful portrait of the relationship between a human and a dog. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9780733654800/living-with-freddie--anna-heyward--2026--9780733654800

In this episode, a conversation with Alice Pung, to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of her landmark memoir, and a bona fide modern Australian classic, Unpolished Gem. In a wonderland called Footscray, a girl named Alice and her Chinese-Cambodian family pursue the Australian Dream – Asian style. Armed with an ocker accent, Alice dives head-first into schooling, romance and the getting of wisdom. Her mother becomes an Aussie battler – an outworker, that is. Her father embraces the miracle of franchising and opens an electrical-appliance store. And every day her grandmother blesses Father Government for giving old people money. Unpolished Gem is a book rich in comedy, a loving and irreverent portrait of a family, its everyday struggles and bittersweet triumphs, and a longstanding Readings favourite. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781760645762/unpolished-gem--alice-pung--2026--9781760645762

In this episode, a conversation with novelist Robyn Dennison, author of a new crime novel, In Plain Sight. This story follows Detective Lara Wilton, a sex-crimes detective who returns to her home town to investigate disturbing photographs found on a USB. But the twin sisters at the centre of the case are guarding secrets of their own, and without their cooperation, the investigation can go nowhere. Exploring the complicated relationship between evidence, justice and personal agency, In Plain Sight is a gripping literary crime novel about the constraints of the law and the blurred boundaries between professional and personal lives. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781923670068/in-plain-sight--robyn-dennison--2026--9781923670068

In this episode, we're presenting conversations with Readings booksellers who have participated in judging this year's Readings New Australian Fiction Prize. With the shortlist of works announced today, we thought it would be a great opportunity to share reflections and observations from judges about their favourite books from this year's shortlist. The Readings Prize has been celebrating outstanding new Australian writing since the prize was first awarded in 2014, and we're incredibly proud of the impact we've had as champions of emerging authors in that time. This year's winner will be announced Tuesday 27 October, and there will be a live celebration, but until then, do listen in to hear from our booksellers on the shortlisted books for this year's prize. Enjoy what you heard? Head to the Readings website to check out the books mentioned in this episode: https://www.readings.com.au/news/the-readings-new-australian-fiction-prize-2026-shortlist

In this episode, something special from our archive. Last year, Readings Carlton hosted Syrian-Palestinian poet Ghayath Almadhoun for a reading and conversation with another poet, Readings bookseller Ender Başkan. Fluid and unselfconscious, Ghayath Almadhoun writes love poems in the shape of nightmares:, andI have brought you a severed hand is a surreal mix of absurd humour, heteroerotic lust and dead seriousness. Caught between two exiles, the one inherited from his Palestinian father and the one he chose and lives, Almadhoun attempts to explain water and tame hope. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781739843120/i-have-brought-you-a-severed-head--ghayath-almadhoun--2025--9781739843120

In this episode, another instalment of the Readings Kids Podcast, hosted by Readings Prize and Readings Foundation coordinator Angela Crocombe. Angela was joined by members of the Teen Advisory Board for a discussion with Suzy Zail, author of A New Kind of Beautiful, a moving YA novel about love, loss, and the beauty in the things we can't always see. Paige Wilding has her future mapped out – the Year 10 Art prize. Graduation. A coveted spot in an elite art school in New York. But when she's diagnosed with an incurable eye disease, the perfect life she's planned starts to blur. She makes a choice to keep her condition secret and live louder, love wilder, and paint like her life depends on it. Only her best friend Jazz knows the truth, and is helping her cram a lifetime of colour into a single year. But as her sight fades and she's forced to give up painting, it's Zac, her rival for the art prize, who helps Paige find a way back to her art and a new kind of beautiful; messy and imperfect but also raw, unfiltered and fiercely alive. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781760653743/a-new-kind-of-beautiful--suzy-zail--2026--9781760653743

In this episode, a recording taken from the Melbourne launch of Tom Griffiths' new book, Alice's dreaming, an astonishing work of history about a girl and the Indigenous world she encountered. Early last century, Alice Duncan-Kemp grew up on a remote Queensland cattle station. Later she would write down her childhood memories of learning from Aboriginal women and men at home on their own Country. In her books, she evoked a rich parallel universe of storytelling and lore, which she felt privileged to witness. She also spoke of an informal local treaty that curbed the violence of the frontier. What are we to make of 'Alice's dreaming' today? Master historian and writer Tom Griffiths takes us into – and beyond – this revelatory encounter. Through it we glimpse the turmoil of a complex and tragic frontier, and a remarkable story of survival and cultural resilience. In recent years, the Mithaka people Alice lived among and wrote about have reclaimed their Country, drawing in part on her writing to support their claims. Alice's dreaming shows how moving, intimate – and unexpected – history can be. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781760646240/alices-dreaming--tom-griffiths--2026--9781760646240

In this episode, a conversation with Amanda Curtin, author of a new novel – Six Days. Daniel, an expatriate Australian who has lived in Paris for more than forty years, has made a mess of his life and is trying to atone, to become the ‘good man' his friend Marcelline believes him to be. But Marcelline has disappeared, the quotidian world has been tipped out of balance and Daniel makes an error of judgment that places at risk everything he values. The novel's six-day narrative, set in the Latin Quarter of Paris in the winter of 2012, expands into lifetimes, histories, as interconnecting stories weave through Daniel's. Stories of abandonment and fractured families, rape and coercion, addiction, ambition, loss and grief, are told in moments and set within the context of war and occupation, the revolutionary sixties, riots in a Catalan town in the south of France, a grassroots movement to make visible the invisible homeless. The personal stitched into, and inseparable from, the political. And throughout, the constant of footsteps and pawpatter as Daniel and his old dog walk the streets of one of the most idealised and romanticised cities on earth. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781764239745/six-days--amanda-curtin--2026--9781764239745

In this episode, another instalment of the Comics Question, where Bernard Caleo discusses comics, graphic novels, and the place they inhabit within the broader books and publishing world. Bernard was joined by Aki Fukuoka, children's book illustrator and graphic novelist, who has worked on over 80 children's books, most notably including Sally Rippin's beloved Billie B Brown series. The two met to discuss the newest iteration in this series, a first graphic novel collaboration for Rippin and Fukuoka, and how, for Aki, this form of children's illustration is inextricably linked to another illustrated storytelling tradition, that of Japanese comics, or Manga. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781761216404/spooky-house-volume-1--sally-rippin--2026--9781761216404

In this episode, a conversation with Lenny Robinson, author of And in the Morning, a prismatic gem of a debut novel that reflects the experiences of women across three wars and the damage done to the men they love. In the winter of 1919, Lily and her three-year-old son, Ted, rush through the streets of Melbourne to welcome home Lily's husband, Bert, who has spent the last four years fighting with the Light Horse in the Middle East. Twenty-three years later, as the same city awaits a Japanese invasion, Frankie, a young servicewoman on a night's leave, meets an airman, Ed, at a dance. Almost three decades on, as Melbourne convulses with anti-war protests, single mother Fran prepares a funeral for her only son, a young conscript killed in Vietnam. And in the Morning is a novel about war and the ways in which its tragedies, both great and small, transform the intimate lives of the mothers, wives and lovers who must live with its consequences. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9780702268847/and-in-the-morning--lenny-robinson--2026--9780702268847

In today's episode, a conversation with Simon Reynolds, acclaimed music writer and journalist, and author of a new book, Still in a Dream: Shoegaze, Slackers and the Reinvention of Rock, 1984-1994. Twenty years after his acclaimed postpunk best-seller, Rip It Up and Start Again, Simon Reynolds tells the tale of what happened next: the underground explosion of noisepop, shoegaze, slacker rock and grunge that reverberated through the mid-Eighties into the early Nineties. Capturing the musical exhilaration of the era along with the alienation of youth during a period of ascendant conservative politics and glitzy mainstream pop, Still in a Dream celebrates a golden age of guitar reinvention, a second psychedelia of mind-blowing sounds pioneered by bands like My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth. In Britain, groups like Cocteau Twins and Slowdive escaped into shimmering dreamworlds while American underground rockers like Dinosaur Jr. and Pavement blended apathy and urgency into thrilling noise. A propulsive and personal account from a journalist who covered this music in real time from the frontlines, Still in a Dream vividly recreates a period that was the last blast for the analogue culture of vinyl records and music papers, before the Internet changed everything. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781399618373/still-in-a-dream--simon-reynolds--2026--9781399618373

In this episode, a conversation recorded at the Melbourne launch of Jordan Prosser's new work of fiction/sci-fi, Blue Giant, an unruly eulogy for millennial optimism – and a deranged love letter to a generation torn between helplessness and selfishness. Abby always believed she was destined for great things. But her dream career as an industry-disrupting fashion designer went up in smoke, and her aspirations to become a world-renowned yogi and/or save the endangered tigers proved equally fruitless. She's in her early thirties, suffering the unbearable burdens of adulthood and anonymity, when she wakes up after a drunken bender with an all-new, all-consuming purpose in life: to be the first person on Mars. Perfect timing – Danish tech entrepreneur Tor Skovgaard is currently recruiting for a one-way mission to colonise the red planet. Abby knows this is it: her last-ditch bid for fame and glory. And if she can't be humanity's saviour … she'll settle for being its martyr. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9780702269240/blue-giant--jordan-prosser--2026--9780702269240

In this episode, a conversation with Avigayl Sharp, author of a blisteringly funny and transcendently deranged debut novel for fans of Ottessa Moshfegh, Patricia Lockwood and George Saunders. In Offseason, our fiercely observant but self-deluded narrator finds herself teaching at an all-girls boarding school in a remote coastal town. In between manic lectures that veer from Charles Dickens's Bleak House to the childhood maltreatment of her beloved Iosif Stalin and the generational legacy of the Holocaust, she implicates everyone she meets in her quest to pin down where exactly her own life went wrong. Avigayl Sharp was interviewed by author Raeden Richardson, to discuss this new book, process and craft, and the role of the novel in contemporary consciousness and culture. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781399637015/offseason--avigayl-sharp--2026--9781399637015

In this episode, a conversation with Mirandi Riwoe, the award-winning, bestselling author of Stone Sky Gold Mountain, and of a new book, the story of an Irish-Chinese family over four generations in Australia, A Short History of Longans. It's the winter of 2049 and Daniel is elderly and long isolated. Soon after yet another devastating storm, this time destroying his beloved longan tree, he finds his fragile peace threatened by a growing friendship with a widowed neighbour and the appearance of a young reporter digging into a shameful event buried deep in his past. As the novel moves back to autumn 2000 and then to summer 1949 and finally to the spring of the mid-nineteenth century, Daniel's family's history unspools, until we meet a Chinese bushranger, Ah Yang. Intriguing and beautifully written, this dazzling novel unravels the secrets and memories of an Irish-Chinese family to explore what it means to belong to place, to ancestors, to ourselves – spanning centuries and generations. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9780702269004/a-short-history-of-longans--mirandi-riwoe--2026--9780702269004

In this episode, another instalment of the Comics Question, where Bernard Caleo discusses comics, graphic novels, and the place they inhabit within the broader books and publishing world. Bernard was joined by Trace Balla, a much-loved Australian children's book writer, illustrator, and author of an extraordinary, inspiring and hope-filled graphic novel, Treeshape. This beautiful book tells the story of young Trace's awakening to the preciousness of the environment, including her participation in the protests against uranium mining at Jabiluka in the 1980s. Channelling her gift for visual storytelling, Trace reveals emotional truths, shares her commitment to environmental activism, highlights trees that have been meaningful in her life, and explores her deep appreciation of place and connection with First Nations peoples. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781761181252/treeshape--trace-balla--2026--9781761181252

In this episode, a conversation with two psychologists; father-and-daughter duo Rachel E. Menzies and Ross G. Menzies, the authors of a new book, Being: Why it's harder to be human than a hamster or a herring. Being human is hard. From early childhood, we start to become aware of the difficulties we must all inevitably face. We will battle an inner critic across the entirety of our life. We will never truly know those around us, and time will destroy all we create. Death becomes a reality, and we cannot escape the knowledge that it is coming for us all. These are the problems of being. In this book, the two Menzies – Rachel and Ross – explore what it means to be human, and our shared need for love, meaning and self-understanding. They highlight the power of hope, the role of purpose in wellbeing, and how acceptance is key to a more authentic and joyful life. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781761471438/being--rachel-e-menzies-ross-g-menzies--2026--9781761471438

In this episode, a recording taken from the launch of Joanne Wallis and Jack Corbett's co-authored book ‘Neighbours: Australia and the Pacific', in which they detail a new vision for our country and our region. Australia has a long history in the Pacific. Many Australians might have forgotten it, but the region has not forgotten us. This book provides an alternative way Australia might relate to its Pacific neighbours. It replaces amnesia with storytelling that emphasises common ancestors, interests and language. It replaces Australian ambivalence with recognition, humility and respect. It does not seek to wish away the realities of asymmetry and hierarchy between Australia and Pacific Island countries, but instead outlines how Australia can work more productively within them. It argues that Australia can only work towards being a better neighbour if it understands its history in the Pacific Islands, and the ideas that have guided its foreign policy in the region for the last two centuries. Tracing the many dimensions of that past engagement, it provides an up-to-date account, written by two highly experienced experts. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781760645571/australias-pacific-history--joanne-wallis-jack-corbett--2026--9781760645571

In this episode, a conversation with Chris Ames, author of a debut collection of short stories, I Made This Just For You. The characters in this book are perfect avatars of modern life. They work in tech, take designer drugs, assemble IKEA furniture, pursue beauty matching, and rehabilitate their reputations – all while grappling with a perilous sense of unease, held hostage by economic forces beyond their control. I Made This Just for You lives in weird and flirts with normal. The stories explore the tension between authenticity and performance, as characters navigate the anxieties of modern parenthood, the disorienting nature of loss and memory, and the absurd, often dystopian, intersection of the digital and the real. This savage, sideways collection asks: How do we measure the distance between two people? How can we thrive within our own ceaseless routines? And how are we still drawn together, in spite of our messy, broken ways of knowing? Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781761154782/i-made-this-just-for-you--chris-ames--2026--9781761154782

In today's episode, another instalment of the Comics Question, where Bernard Caleo discusses comics, graphic novels, and the place they inhabit within the broader books and publishing world. This week, Bernard is joined by Readings' children's book division manager, Kim Gruschow. This month of July, Readings is both promoting in-store and offering discounts off a broadened array of Graphic Novels, Comics and other related forms of storytelling. Ahead of some marquee releases scheduled for this year, Bernard sat down with Readings' Kids Buyer Kim Gruschow to point to some favourites and a brief chronology of the graphic novel form in Australia. Like what you heard? Shop our July graphic novel sale here: https://www.readings.com.au/collections/australian-graphic-novels-for-kids

In this episode, a conversation with novelist and poet Maria Takolander, author of The End of Romance, a new work of dystopian fiction. It is the future, and the earth has seemingly refused to cooperate with humanity, producing only thorn-bearing plants and caustic fogs in abundance. Life is hard for those who still inhabit urban communities. For those who have chosen to live ‘off-grid' it is subsistence at best, but at least there is some kind of independence. A woman and her son live alone, surviving as scavengers. Even so, the boy must attend military school like all the other boys. In time he will be shipped off with the rest of them to a distant planet – the Promised Land – to fight the colonising war that is touted as humanity's only hope. By chance, the woman meets a young man who has avoided this fate, despite his lack of physical impairment. It appears that he comes from a place of sanctuary. Can he lead her back there – and help her to save her son? In taut, evocative prose, Maria Takolander has conjured an eerie and compelling story of desolation and hope that resonates in the imagination. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781925355093/the-end-of-romance--maria-takolander--2026--9781925355093

In this episode, a conversation with writer, social worker and counsellor Laura McPhee-Browne, author of the novel Worry Doll, a thrilling exploration of love and desire – obsessive, all-consuming, and impossible to look away from. On an ordinary day, two women meet on a train. Heloise – the older woman – lives with her boyfriend in Melbourne. Lacey – the other woman – is from Aotearoa and studies the clouds. What follows is anything but ordinary, a passionate affair that will consume them both in mismatched and maddening ways. Propulsive and lyrical, Worry Doll examines desire, memory, and the delusion of love. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781761381850/worry-doll--laura-mcphee-browne--2026--9781761381850

In this episode, a conversation with Madeleine Gray, author of Chosen Family – a queer, epic literary novel for all readers by the award-winning author of the internationally acclaimed bestseller Green Dot. Books about friendship are not often described as love stories, but this is one. Nell Argall and Eve Bowman are both brilliant, odd and friendless. Traumatised in their first year of high school, their lives are changed forever when they meet. Set in Sydney over eighteen years, Chosen Family follows Nell and Eve as they grow into themselves, as they both love and destroy each other. Can the wounds of adolescent betrayal ever really heal? Can we ever really understand what is going on in someone else's head? Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781761635724/chosen-family--madeleine-gray--2025--9781761635724

In today's episode, a recording taken from the Melbourne launch of Tony Albert's incredible new art book, Not A Souvenir, a landmark monograph that celebrates an artist, curator and cultural leader, whose work reshapes how we see Aboriginal identity, urging a more honest and hopeful vision of Australia's past and future. Tony Albert's art reclaims and reframes the imagery of Aboriginal Australia with wit, beauty and force. Across painting, photography, sculpture and installation, his practice explores Aboriginal culture, identity and history through a deeply personal lens. Drawing on individual and collective pasts, Albert transforms the visual language of colonisation – turning objects of prejudice into symbols of resistance, resilience and pride. Not a Souvenir is the most comprehensive publication on the artist to date, tracing his journey as one of Australia's most incisive contemporary voices. Across themes of past, present and future, the book unpacks the many critical questions raised in Albert's work: how do we remember, give justice to and rewrite complex and traumatic histories? Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781760764555/tony-albert--tony-albert--2026--9781760764555

In this episode, we have a conversation with Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff, co-authors of Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed. Who on earth is Elon Musk and what is he doing? Is he a hero, a villain, or does he swing constantly between those two poles? According to the constant media gush driven by his every act and pronouncement, Musk is best understood in personal terms. This book argues differently. Rather than seeing Musk as an individual, it sees him as an avatar of something called Muskism: a playbook for our new postliberal age. It's not that Musk himself holds a coherent set of beliefs; you could say his life is one long improvisation. And he's certainly never used the word Muskism – just as, a century ago, Henry Ford never used Fordism to define his own postliberal modernity. In exploring the forces that have shaped Musk, from South Africa to Silicon Valley, Space X to DOGE, Slobodian and Tarnoff outline the motifs and practices that have come to dominate our own crisis-ridden world. Muskism, they show, speaks the language of crisis and emergency to invoke a less human future: where humans are purged from the productive process and, through social media and video games, merged with the machine. This is a worldview in which the technocrat is king; which piggybacks on the state to achieve supremacy; and in which only a select few deserve salvation. If you enter, this book warns you, you will grind and you will live in the shadow of one man – but the rewards could be priceless and the alternative might be extinction. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9780241805114/muskism--quinn-slobodian-ben-tarnoff--2026--9780241805114

In this week's episode, we're doing something a little different. As Readings celebrates Australian Fiction throughout June, we're turning to the people who spend every day talking about books: our booksellers. Australian writers have shaped our literary culture and found readers around the world, yet they can still be overlooked in international conversations about great literature. Rather than trying to define a canon, we've asked Readings staff across our Melbourne shops to share the Australian novels they return to, recommend and love. From literary classics to contemporary favourites, these are passionate, personal recommendations celebrating the extraordinary breadth of Australian storytelling.

In this episode, a conversation with two contributors to Griffith Review 92. Griffith Review is a quarterly literary journal, with every edition exploring a different theme, bringing together long-form critical and analytical non-fiction and creative writing from the finest emerging and established writers from Australia and overseas. In his piece ‘Encircling the flames,' Raeden Richardson reflects upon his time at Yale-NUS College, Singapore, and in her own work, ‘The limits of authenticity,' Mindy Gill asks the reader to contemplate, just as she does, on literary culture, inclusion and the commodification of identity. The two writers were joined in conversation by Darby Jones, a writer and editorial assistant at Griffith Review, to discuss the themes of these essays more broadly. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781923213197/griffith-review-92--2026--9781923213197

In this episode, a conversation with Steve Toltz, Booker-shortlisted author, and the writer of a new audacious, comic lament for a world that no longer knows itself – a novel titled A Rising of the Lights. In a reeling world of fraudsters and hypnotists, sleep talkers and estranged twins, false alibis and second chances, Rusty Wilson is beset on all sides by mysteries. Why was his childhood decided by a throw of dice, why has his wife confessed to a lover, and why do his parents no longer wish to see him? When Rusty loses his job to an AI system, Edwina, the mercurial friend of his youth, finds him a new role as an oracle to the young. But how can he advise anyone on what it means to be human when artificial consciousness appears within reach? If it's all just one more con, it's not clear who's scamming who. Besides, should any of it matter to Rusty, when all he wants is for those he loves to love him back? Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781761355936/a-rising-of-the-lights--steve-toltz--2026--9781761355936

In this episode, a conversation with writer and comedian Patrick Marlborough, author of Nock Loose. Set in the fictional coastal town of Bodkins Point, where an annual ultra-violent medieval festival has warped local history and identity for generations, it follows retired Olympian archer and former Tokusatsu stunt performer Joy as she embarks on a revenge quest through a landscape of grifters, weirdos, colonial ghosts and spectacular violence. Equal parts satire, thriller and fever dream, it's a feral, funny and surprisingly heartfelt novel unlike anything else in contemporary Australian fiction. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781760997441/nock-loose--2026--9781760997441

In this episode, a conversation with Y.M. Abdel-Magied, author, writer, commentator and the mind behind a new book, At Sea. Expert driller Zainab is called to take charge of a high-stakes oil rig operation. Unable to resist the opportunity, she leaves behind her pregnant sister and heads offshore for the job of her life. But there's a catch. The rig is teetering on the edge of disaster – and Zainab is the only woman amongst a crew of hardened men who want absolutely nothing to do with her. At the helm but forced to prove herself at every turn, Zainab labours to investigate the rig's imminent collapse. She quickly grasps that the real danger lies in the cold calculations and base desires of the men she is forced to spend every waking moment with. As tensions rise and secrets unravel, Zainab races to uncover the truth bubbling below and fend off the looming catastrophe. Explosive and thought-provoking, At Sea is an exhilarating story about the clash of ambition, principle and prejudice, and the unexpected consequences of our choices. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781837267095/at-sea--ym-abdel-magied--2026--9781837267095

In this episode, a conversation with award-winning poet and writer Doireann Ni Ghriofa, author of a new book, Said the Dead. In the city of Cork, a derelict Victorian mental hospital is being converted into modern apartments. One passerby has always flinched as she passes the place. Had she lived in another time, she too might have found herself held within those walls. Now, she notices a sign: FOR SALE. It is the first of many signs. Guided by an irresistible impulse, she follows them. Soon, she is trespassing, stealing, absconding from the routine of mother, spouse, daughter, as she uncovers a chorus of startling voices: those of the women who knew the hospital best. They murmur from archives and old records. They haunt from stairwells and walls. In them – and in one figure in particular – she may find meaning and solace, righteous anger, salvation even. Or her final vanishing? A work of sublime intensity and tenderness, Said the Dead breaks the boundaries between worlds – past and present, imagined and real, fact and fiction – to make something new and lasting: an experience full of danger, full of love and full of truth. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9780571396177/said-the-dead--doireann-ni-ghriofa--2026--9780571396177

In this episode, some different introduction music. This is Frédéric Chopin's Nocturne in B-flat minor, Op. 9, No. 1 (from 1832), and the reason is that today's conversation is with Susan Tomes, a celebrated pianist, an author of Nocturnes and the Fascination of Night Music, an engrossing history of the music of twilight and sleep, from the nocturnes of John Field and Chopin to Max Richter. In an insomniac age, ambient and sleep music have become increasingly popular. But our association between music and sleep is not new: lullabies may be the oldest form of music and are instantly recognisable across peoples and cultures. Why does the night hold such musical fascination for us, and what forms do its sounds take? Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9780300278897/nocturnes--susan-tomes--2026--9780300278897

In this episode, a conversation with poet and novelist Lisa Gorton. Mirror Landscape: New and Selected Poems is a tribute to Gorton's achievement, and it brings together in one volume poems published over the past twenty years, from her first collection Press Release to her most recent Mirabilia. It also includes a substantial new sequence of poems, ‘Caesars', on the relation between art and power. The title reflects Gorton's fascination with the perspectives of space and time, and the ways in which memory and landscape, the past and the future, fold in and out of each other. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781923106734/mirror-landscape--lisa-gorton--2026--9781923106734

In this episode, a conversation with Yann Martel, winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize, and author of a new novel, Son of Nobody. In this new book, we meet Harlow Donne, who sacrificed his life to the study of the Classical world. When he is invited to Oxford University to work on an obscure collection of papyrus fragments it is an academic's dream come true. He must leave behind his daughter and wife in Canada, but offers like this don't come twice and he badly needs a change of fortune. Then, while studying in the Bodleian Library, he unearths a completely undiscovered account of the Trojan War, a glimpse into the founding of Western civilisation itself. He names the poem The Psoad, after its protagonist, a commoner identified only as Psoas, the son of nobody. As sole translator and author of The Psoad, Harlow dedicates the poem and its footnotes to his daughter Helen, allowing the text to unlock the echoes of the ancient Greeks into the present day, and to share a personal message with his beloved child. Despite the two-thousand-year gap between the two, a thread hasn't frayed: the universal song of homesickness and regret, of ambition, love and grief. A work of myth, history and domesticity, Son of Nobody explores how stories become facts, the price we pay to share them and how we live – then, now and always. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781923058811/son-of-nobody--yann-martel--2026--9781923058811

In this episode, a conversation with journalist and human rights advocate Antoinette Lattouf, the author of a new book, Women Who Win: Celebrating Courage, Conviction and Change. In this book, Lattouf highlights and speaks with women who defied expectations and shattered cultural and legal barriers – usually while being cast aside and asked to calm down. Threaded throughout is Lattouf's account of her own landmark victory – one woman, armed with ethical resolve, taking on Australia's most powerful media institution. In doing so, she sparked a global conversation on power, prejudice and the price of integrity in the press. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781761355370/women-who-win--antoinette-lattouf--2026--9781761355370

In this episode, a conversation with writer and journalist Antoun Issa, author of Rebirth: A Love Story from the Depths of War. Beirut, Lebanon – 1974. Laila Khalil has just come of age for marriage. The eldest of five in a poor Catholic family, Laila knows that she must fulfil her family's expectations. But her heart is drawn to the handsome Nicolas, a coiffeur at a local hair salon. Dodging the watchful eyes in their patriarchal society, particularly those of Laila's domineering father, the two young lovers begin a tender romance. Soon, they make plans for marriage. But Laila's dreams are dashed when the Lebanese Civil War breaks out. Shells whir overhead as Laila's family are caught in heavy clashes between rival militias of Phalangists and those belonging to the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. When tragedy strikes, Laila watches all her hopes wither to ash. But just as life seems at its darkest, a lifeline presents itself: the prospect of migration to a faraway land called Australia. Rebirth is the story of Antoun Issa's mother, of the home and family she left behind, and of her new life in Australia. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9780733651885/rebirth-wto--antoun-issa--2024--9780733651885

In this episode, a conversation with Angela O'Keeffe, author of the novels The Sitter and Night Blue, and now, a new work, Phantom Days. The stories that unfold in this book are, in part, told by a book. The book is a quiet observer, both as object and as subject, as listener and teller, primarily a witness to the story of three people – mother and daughter Maggie and Isabel, and another, Lewis. But there is another anthropomorphised object of powerful, narrative pertinence that also serves O'Keeffe's explorations into the mysteries of many things in this novel: violence, love, and creation. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9780702271151/phantom-days--angela-okeeffe--2026--9780702271151

In this episode, a conversation with #1 New York Times bestselling author Marissa Meyer and rising star Tamara Moss, co-authors of The Escape Game, a new YA mystery-thriller filled with sabotage, betrayal, and puzzles. The two authors were joined in conversation by Readings Marketing and Events Coordinator, Lucie Dess, to discuss their writing process (an intercontinental writing process, that is), their ideal escape rooms and what it's like to embark upon writing a thriller.

In this episode, a conversation with writer Ana Schnabl, author of Flood Tide. In moderate physical decline, and with an immoderate weed habit, the novelist Dunja Anko returns home to the Slovene Adriatic coast to play detective and solve the mystery of her brother's death. The going is arduous, the people inscrutable; her old friends have had years to forget – or to convince themselves they don't remember. Dunja must contend with desire and disgust, curiosity and fear, as she begins to doubt her reasons for returning. Elegantly plotted, funny and self-reflexive, Flood Tide is a psychologically deft exploration of the trauma wrought by human limitation and indecision. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781739516154/flood-tide--ana-schnabl--2025--9781739516154

In this episode, a conversation with Patrick Ness, acclaimed author, screenwriter and journalist. Ness has made a return to his bestselling Chaos Walking series and the setting of New World, with Piper at the Gates of Dusk. Something has been spotted in the night sky. Something that's bringing back dreams of Noise, dreams of terror. Brothers Ben and Max have never really gotten on, each being more like one of their parents – Todd and Viola. But now they will have to come together, for something is coming. Blending sci-fi, speculative fiction and adventure with themes of power, division and hope, Ness has found another story he wants to tell, one that answers interesting questions and explores fascinating new frontiers but never loses sight of the heart that was so important to those first three books. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781529537581/piper-at-the-gates-of-dusk--patrick-ness--2026--9781529537581

In this episode, another instalment of the Comics Question, where Bernard Caleo is in conversation with acclaimed comics artist, Mandy Ord. Ord's work has been featured in numerous publications, and her books have received both national and international awards and nominations. In her new book, Sassy, Ord captures an animal-related encounter every day for a year bringing whimsy and delight to the weird and wonderful. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9780646733371/sassy-a-year-of-animals--mandy-ord--9780646733371

In this episode, a conversation with Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston, a neuroscientist and author of the book The Future Loves You: How and Why We Should Abolish Death. This book puts forward a bold and, at times, unsettling idea – that death may not be as inevitable as we've long assumed. In the book, he argues that as medicine continues to advance – from ventilators to brain implants – we've already begun to blur the boundary between life and death. And if what truly defines us is not our heartbeat or our breath, but the structure of our minds – encoded in the brain – then perhaps preserving that structure could allow future generations to revive us. It's a provocative shift in perspective. Because if death is not simply biological failure, but the loss of personal identity, then the question becomes: can that identity be preserved? And if it can, what would it mean – for us, and for the kind of future we're building? Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781802063790/the-future-loves-you--dr-ariel-zeleznikow-johnston--2025--9781802063790

In this episode, another instalment of the Readings Kids Podcast, and an interview with Fiona Wood, author of The Boy and the Dog Tree, an exceptional middle-grade novel about the special bond between a dog and his boy; a heart-lifting tale of friendship, courage and belonging. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9780702269226/the-boy-and-the-dog-tree--fiona-wood--2026--9780702269226

In this episode, a conversation with award-winning playwright George Kemp, about his debut novel, Soft Serve. Stuck in a regional McDonald's, as bushfires close in, three twenty-somethings and their dead friend's mum all face a reckoning. Fern longs for Ethan, Ethan longs for Jacob, and Jacob struggles to long for anything. Meanwhile, Pat just wants her grief to ease up. Soft Serve proves that small-town lives are huge, and that anyone can get stuck in limbo between their past and their hoped-for future. The book is described as ‘drive-thru Chekhov', full of wit and heart. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9780702269134/soft-serve--george-kemp--2026--9780702269134

In this episode, another instalment of the Comics Question, where Bernard Caleo is in conversation with acclaimed graphic novelist and comic artist, Lee Lai. In Cannon, Lee Lai's follow-up to the critically acclaimed and award-winning Stone Fruit, the full palette of a nervous breakdown is just a part of what is on offer. Lai's sharp sense of humour and sensitive eye produce a story that explores the intimacy of queer friendship and the weight of family responsibility, and breaks open the question of what we owe both to each other and to ourselves. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781923106406/cannon--lee-lai--2025--9781923106406

In today's episode, a conversation with Francesca Wade, author of Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife, a biography as unconventional and surprising as the life it tells. 'Think of the Bible and Homer, think of Shakespeare and think of me,' wrote Gertrude Stein in 1936. Admirers called her a genius, sceptics a charlatan: she remains one of the most confounding - and contested - writers of the twentieth century. In this literary detective story, Francesca Wade delves into the creation of the Stein myth. We see her posing for Picasso's portrait; at the centre of Bohemian Parisian life hosting the likes of Matisse and Hemingway; racing through the French countryside with her enigmatic companion Alice B. Toklas; dazzling American crowds on her sell-out tour for her sensational Autobiography - a veritable celebrity. Yet Stein hoped to be remembered not for her personality but for her work. From her deathbed, she charged her partner with securing her place in literary history. How would her legend shift once it was Toklas's turn to tell the stories - especially when uncomfortable aspects of their past emerged from the archive? Using astonishing never-before-seen material, Wade uncovers the origins of Stein's radical writing and reveals new depths to the storied relationship which made it possible. This book truly shows Gertrude Stein as she was when nobody was watching: captivating, complex and human, and of particular note, it grants pertinent insight into her life with, and the life of, her companion Alice B. Toklas.  Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9780571369317/gertrude-stein--francesca-wade--2025--9780571369317

In this episode, a conversation with Fiona Hardy, author of Old Games, a pacey, off-beat Aussie crime story about two best female friends and investigators unravelling the private lives of Melbourne's celebrity sportspeople. Enjoyed what you heard. Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781761638275/old-games--fiona-hardy--2026--9781761638275 Morally flexible best mates and private investigators Alice and Teddy pride themselves on fixing every kind of mess imaginable, no questions asked. So, when they're tasked with locating the recently-stolen ashes of long-dead celebrity tennis player Ashley “Perry” Perrineau, it should be a routine job. But it quickly becomes clear that everyone who knew Perry is keeping secrets: his accountant despises Perry's widower; the sculptor of his statue is hiding something in her studio; his ex-doubles partner is a compulsive liar; and his mother is obsessed with preserving his legacy and her image at all costs. Alice and Teddy will need to travel up and down Melbourne's Mornington Peninsula – all while avoiding more than one person on their tail – to uncover the truth and keep the body count from rising. But will they and the people they love survive what they find?

In this episode, a conversation with Alister Newstead, a music journalist, reporter and music editor with Triple J and Double J, and author of a new book in the 33 1/3 series on Tame Impala's landmark album, Currents. The album is emblematic of a cultural shift in music production and consumption in the early days of streaming and a project that cemented its creator, Kevin Parker, as one of Australian music's most unlikely success stories and influential exports. This book dives deep into Currents, examining its context, creation, content and lasting impact on the history of Australian popular music. The album's theme of metamorphosis and genre-blurring sound embodied (and possibly encouraged) a wider shift in the 2010s of popular music trends, consumption and listening habits. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9798765137017/tame-impalas-currents--alister-newstead--2026--9798765137017

In this episode, another instalment of The Comics Question, where Bernard Caleo discusses comics, graphic novels, and the place they inhabit within the broader books and publishing world. Today's conversation is with cartoonist Georgina Chadderton, who, in her new book Oh Brother, examines the fun and difficult parts of growing up alongside her autistic brother, Rob. Although Georgina has been published all over the globe, Oh Brother is her first full-length graphic novel. When they're not making comics, Georgina co-directs Papercuts Comics Festival, runs comics-making workshops and reads comics by their favourite comics makers (basically, it's all comics, all the time). Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781761046346/oh-brother--georgina-chadderton--2026--9781761046346

In this episode, a conversation with poet and writer, Hasib Hourani, author of rock flight. This is a book-length poem that, over seven chapters, follows a personal and historical narrative to compose an understated yet powerful allegory of Palestine's occupation. Formally claustrophobic, the poem morphs into irony, declaring everything a box while refusing to exist within one. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781923106116/rock-flight--hasib-hourani--2024--9781923106116

In this episode, another instalment of the Readings Kids podcast, and an interview with the author Ruby Jean Cottle, writer of Black River, a mystical new YA series that blends fantasy, sci-fi and romance. Ruby Jean Cottle was interviewed by members of the Readings Teen Advisory Board, who posed questions throughout the conversation. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781761631603/black-river-volume-1--ruby-jean-cottle--2025--9781761631603

In this episode, we're delighted to begin 2026 with an interview with one of Readings' favourite writers, a key member of Australia's literary community and a frequent guest (in the interviewer seat) on the Readings Podcast itself, Kate Mildenhall. Her acclaimed books include Skylarking, The Mother Fault and The Hummingbird Effect, and joining these with publication late last year is The Hiding Place. It's The White Lotus meets The Slap, in a razor-sharp literary thriller about deception and self-deception, and how far people will go to protect what they feel they ought to have. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781761429057/the-hiding-place--kate-mildenhall--2025--9781761429057