Nonfiction
Great music books from 2023
This year was another fantastic one for music books. Below you'll find a selection of our favourites that include memoir, essay, nonfiction and even the fashion of an icon.
Half Deaf, Completely Mad by Tony Cohen & John Olson
Maverick music producer-engineer Tony Cohen defined Australia’s punk and rock sounds in the late ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. His long and celebrated career took him from the studios of Melbourne and Sydney to West Berlin and London’s Abbey Road, working with…
Christmas cookbooks to inspire
There's nothing better than gathering with friends and family for a festive feast during the summer months. Below, we've rounded up some of the best Christmas-centric cookbooks to help you celebrate this year!
Christmas Table by The Australian Women's Weekly
A modern approach to the season's fare in a beautiful book containing all the recipes you'd expect for ham, turkey, sides, desserts and puddings
Christmas is a special time of year for indulging in food and fun with your loved…
The best food and gardening books of the month, with Chris Gordon
Eat Lao by Sam Sempill
Sam Sempill is a Lao-born Australian textile artist and architect with a certain magical cooking skill developed through years spent in the kitchen with her grandmother. Like all good cookbooks, this collection of Lao-cuisine based recipes is more than a list of ingredients and instructions. It is a window into the past. Beautifully illustrated, you will find recipes for trout soup, custard pumpkin dessert and an enormous range of deliciously flavoured meals that, once seen…
Decent people, a leering myna, and an unexpected inheritance
To celebrate the release of her new book, Corners of Melbourne, award-winning author Robyn Annear very kindly investigated the history of a street corner well known to Readings Carlton and Kids customers – Carlton’s Tyne Street. Here, Annear takes us back in time and along Tyne Street, revealing a healthy locale with a surprisingly colourful history.
If we’re talking street corners, Readings Carlton is ideally positioned. The two Lygon Street shops occupy facing corners of the west-running Tyne Street…
The best food and gardening books of the month, with Chris Gordon
The Farm Table by Julius Roberts
Do you love Matthew Evans’ recipes? Perhaps Jamie Oliver’s? Now, combine those two tremendous cooks and consider the way they both use food in season with simple recipes. Well, move over boys because Julius is in town. This is English farmer and cook Julius Roberts’ first book, although you may have seen him on TV, and it is a beauty. It’s filled with ideas and ideals, all suited to anyone out there with a…
Winners of the 2023 James Cropper Wainwright Prize
The James Cropper Wainwright Prize is awarded annually to the books which most successfully inspire readers to explore the outdoors and to nurture a respect for the natural world. Marking its 10th Anniversary, this year’s winning books cast a spotlight on remarkable habitats – wild rivers, lost rainforests and the wonderous Arctic – inspiring advocacy for, and reconnection with, nature for readers of all ages.
Here are the winners for each category:
Nature Writing
The Flow by Amy-Jane Beer
On…
An extract from Everything You Need to Know About the Voice by Megan Davis and George Williams
This year, we will all vote on whether to change the Consititution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. Constitutional law experts Megan Davis and George Williams have written an accessible and informative guide that explains how this proposal came about, the purpose of the Voice, and the importance of this moment for all Australians. Everything You Need to Know About the Voice is essential reading, and you can begin with…
The 2023 National Biography Award winner
The State Library of New South Wales (SLNSW) has announced Ann-Marie Priest's 'perceptive' and 'creative' biography of the elusive Gwen Harwood, one of Australia's finest poets, as the winner of this year's $25,000 National Biography Award.
My Tongue Is My Own: A Life of Gwen Harwood reveals a deeply passionate figure who refused to be bound by convention, and reclaims Gwen Harwood’s unique and powerful place in Australian literary history. As SLNSW noted, 'The judges were unanimous that My Tongue…
The 2023 National Biography Award shortlist
The State Library of New South Wales (SLNSW) has announced this year’s shortlist for the National Biography Award! This Award is presented annually to a published work of biographical or autobiographical writing aiming to promote public interest in these genres.
Each shortlisted author will receive $2000 while the winner will receive $25,000.
Discover the shortlisted works below.
Unknown: A refugee’s story by Akuch Kuol Anyieth
The Ghost Tattoo by Tony Bernard
How to End a Story: Diaries 1995–1998 by Helen…
Contextualising Ukraine through literature
by Alina, Readings Teen Advisory BoardAlina from our 2023 Readings Teen Advisory Board has been working to contextualise Ukraine through literature.
As Ukraine is in the centre of a war near global proportions, its literature and art are drawn upon to sustain its cultural identity and presence in the world. From poetry in the soviet era, and authoritative texts on Ukraine's vital history, to fictional works by Ukraine's most dynamic writers, this list of books has been created to help deepen my own understanding, and…
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