Professionally, you’d have to be a little short of Earth logic to give your heart away to young adult (YA) fiction in this country. The challenges come from all sides.

You’re up against industry snobbery, for a start, despite the fact that children’ and YA books as a category is that rare beast: a print publishing and bookselling growth area. Martin Amis skimmed us a casual slur in 2011, summing up many people’s inside-thoughts: ‘If I had a serious…

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Every month, we do a spotlight feature on an Australian author and Rachel Hills is our chosen author for August. Her new book, The Sex Myth: The Gap Between Our Fantasies and Reality, will change the way you think about your sex life.

What’s the book about?

Fifty years after the sexual revolution, we are told that we live in a time of unprecedented sexual freedom; that, if anything, we are too free now. But beneath the veneer of…

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Equal parts social commentary, pop culture, and personal anecdotes, The Sex Myth: The Gap Between Our Fantasies and Reality will change the way you think about your sex life. Here’s an extract from the book’s introduction.

When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I was consumed by sex. Not by the physical urge to have it, although I had my share of crushes and unfulfilled desires. Nor was I overly concerned with the particulars of how I…

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Rachel Hills is the author of The Sex Myth: The Gap Between Our Fantasies and Reality. Here she talks about why she felt it was important to write about this idea.

As soon as the idea for The Sex Myth came to me, I knew it was ‘the one’. I’d flirted with other ideas for books before, ranging from the not-particularly-original (a collection of essays pontificating on contemporary feminist issues) to the thank-god-I-never-actually-pitched-that (a series of interviews with inspiring…

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Rachel Hills is the author of The Sex Myth: The Gap Between Our Fantasies and Reality. Here she tells us the last five books she read.

Only Ever Yours by Louise O’Neill

Louise and I have followed each other on Twitter for about a year, and after seeing the fantastic reviews her book was getting in her native Ireland, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it once it was published internationally. Only Ever Yours weighs in at…

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It’s been a big week for children’s books at Readings. Here’s what’s been happening!

On Tuesday, we enjoyed champagne and cake to celebrate Trace Balla’s win of this year’s Readings Children’s Book Prize. Our managing director Mark Rubbo was as proud as punch to hand over a giant cheque worth $4000 to Trace for her wonderful book Rivertime.

We have sold over 750 copies of the book since announcing the shortlist on March 22nd, so Rivertime is not…

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Looking to join a bookclub for serious readers? We still have spaces available in our contemporary fiction book club held in our Hawthorn shop, starting 20 August.

The first book for August is the winner of this year’s Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, How to be Both by Ali Smith.

When and where?

Readings Hawthorn bookclubs meet in the Hawthorn shop, 701 Glenferrie Road on the third Thursday of every month, starting Thursday 20 August, then Thursday 17 September, Thursday…

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Each week we bring you a sample of the books we’re reading, the films we’re watching, the television shows we’re hooked on or the music we’re loving.

Nina Kenwood is reading Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

I have just finished Joanna Rakoff’s A Fortunate Age, which is a terrific novel, but also a very long and absorbing one, and after spending a few weeks with her characters, I’m ready to spend time with someone new!

To…

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Dear Reader,

It’s time to introduce myself as Readings’ new head book buyer! I’m not really properly new, though; visitors to Carlton might recognise me because I’ve been working part time at the shop for the last twelve years (including recently as a buyer of specialist titles). I’ve been bookselling for twenty years or so while pursuing a parallel academic career path, but I’m now a self-described ‘recovering academic’ because I’ve reset my course to follow my first love –…

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Over the next few weeks we’re participating in a work experience program with students from high schools across Melbourne. Here, Hespa Broomhall tells us what she likes to read, and why.

How would you describe your taste in books?

My taste in books varies, but mainly I enjoy action and sci-fi books with a bit of romance on the side. I like to read YA and adult books.

Tell us about one of your favourite books ever?

One of my…

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