Looking for a new book but your TBR is so long you don't know where to start? Turn to the stars, and let your astrological sign decide for you!

If you're an Aries you should read:

The Dagger and the Flame by Catherine Doyle

Aries are typically fiery, passionate, competitive and more than a little impulsive. If you think that sounds like most romantasy heroines, then I agree! Which is why The Dagger and the Flame is a great read…

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As a UNESCO City of Literature, Melbourne Naarm has a proud history when it comes to literary endeavours. It houses Australia's oldest public library, State Library Victoria; The Wheeler Centre, a vibrant hub for a diverse range of organisations focused on literature and ideas; was home to Cole's Book Arcade, the world's largest bookshop of its time; and of course Readings (and numerous other bookshops) has also played an important role over more than five decades…

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2024 has been a great year for Australian fiction, with new releases from beloved authors like Tim Winton, Robbie Arnott, Liane Moriarty and Anita Heiss; but there have also been lots of incredible new books from first-time authors who you might not have heard of. Here are our top picks for amazing debuts that you need to be sure not to miss and new authors you should keep your eye on!

Big Time by Jordan Prosser

Big…

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Australian Society of Authors (ASA) has announced joint winners for the 2024 Barbara Jefferis Award: Sara M Saleh for Songs for the Dead and the Living and Lucy Treloar for Days of Innocence and Wonder.

Administered by the ASA, the award celebrates women in literature and is awarded biennially for ‘the best novel written by an Australian author that depicts women and girls in a positive way or otherwise empowers the status of women and girls in…

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Alexis Wright has been sweeping Australian literary awards since the release of her novel Praiseworthy, and now her fully body of work has been celebrated by the Melbourne Prize for Literature.

The annual prize is awarded to a Victorian author whose body of published work has made an outstanding contribution to Australian literature and to cultural and intellectual life, and it is one of Australia's most valuable and prestigious literary awards. Past winners of the prize include Christos Tsiolkas…

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Looking for something juicy to discuss in your book club? Try one of these new releases, chosen by our booksellers to appeal to a wide range of readers and provide plenty to talk about.

Australian fiction

This Kingdom of Dust by David Dyer

The whole world has just watched Neil and Buzz walk on the Moon. Now they are struck by terror: the lunar module's engine has failed. There is no back-up, no other way off the surface. If the…

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True to form, Sally Rooney's Intermezzo has maintained its number one status this month, correctly proving the book is worth all the hype!

Two great Australian crime authors have released books this month: Christian White's The Ledge, a mind-bending novel where past and present run breathlessly, tensely parallel, leading to a cliff-hanger nobody will see coming; and Chris Hammer's The Valley, which sees the return of Nell Buchanan and Ivan Lucic in a page-turning plot with an evocative…

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Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser

It's 1986, and 'beautiful, radical ideas' are in the air. A young woman arrives in Melbourne to research the novels of Virginia Woolf. In bohemian St Kilda she meets artists, activists, students – and Kit. He claims to be in a 'deconstructed' relationship, and they become lovers. Meanwhile, her work on the Woolfmother falls into disarray.

Theory & Practice is a mesmerising account of desire and jealousy, truth and shame. It makes and…

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The start of a new month means that there's a new issue of Readings Monthly available online and in our shops. Below you can read the foreword from the latest issue – and keep an eye on the blog for more updates and recommended new releases throughout the month!

This is the last issue of the Readings Monthly for the year. We’ve been publishing this newsletter for over 30 years now. It is a lot of work to put together…

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One way of acknowledging women whose lives have had little or no recognition in the history books is to write about them in a fictional setting – imagining, and in some cases, reimagining, what their lives might have been like. We've chosen some wonderful books inspired by the lives of a few famous, and many less so, female figures.

✒️ Studious women

Rapture by Emily Maguire

The motherless child of an English priest living in ninth-century Mainz, Agnes is a…

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