Please note: This event is now online.

Join us for an evening with Nigel Featherstone and Michelle Tom in conversation.

Tom has written a powerful, poetic and moving memoir of family, violence and estrangement. Her book Ten Thousand Aftershocks weaves together a series of ever-widening and far-reaching emotional and seismic aftershocks, in a beautifully written and compelling account of a dark family drama.

After Michelle’s house was damaged by a deadly magnitude 6.3 earthquake in Christchurch in 2011, she and her young family suffered through another 10,000 aftershocks before finally relocating to the stability of Melbourne. But soon after arriving, Michelle received the news that her estranged sister was dying. Determined to reconnect before her sister died, Michelle flew home to visit – and memories of childhood flooded back. Told through the five stages of an earthquake via remembered fragments, Michelle’s memoir explores the similarities between seismic upheaval and her own family’s tragedies: her sister’s terminal illness, her brother’s struggle with schizophrenia and ultimate suicide, her father’s sudden death, her own panic disorder, and through it all, one overarching battle – her lifelong struggle to form a healthy connection with her mother.

This event is free to attend but bookings are essential.

Please book here.

Attendees will be sent a promo code to claim $5 off the price of the book when they book their ticket. This code will be valid until 24 hours after the event has ended. When purchasing in store, simply mention the discount code or show your digital ticket at the counter to receive the discount.

How to ‘attend’ a virtual event at Readings

This event commences online at 6.30pm using the video conferencing platform Zoom.

To book for this event, you must provide your email address.

To ensure the Zoom event stays private, participants will be emailed a unique zoom link and a password 30 minutes before the event begins on the day of the event. Please check your email.

All bookings for online events will be closed one hour before the event begins.

You do not need to have a Zoom account to join a meeting, but mobile users will need to download the Zoom app for their device. Desktop and laptop users can either download the Zoom application or access the event via their web browser.