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Kibble and Dobbie Literary Awards Winners 2015
Congratulations to the winners of the Kibble and Dobbie Literary Awards 2015!
Ellen van Neerven has received the $5,000 Dobbie Literary Award (for a first-time author) for her short-story collection, Heat and Light. Voted by our staff as one of the Best Fiction books of 2014, you can read our review here.
Joan London has received the $30,000 Kibble Literary Award (for an established author) for her novel, The Golden Age. You can read our review…
Thoughts on Go Set A Watchman
I’ve finished reading Go Set A Watchman.
Whew! What a relief! Now I can read all those reviews, opinion pieces, hot takes and tweets safe in the knowledge that I have read the book, and my opinion, should I choose to comment on an article (I won’t) is somewhat qualified. If anyone ever says to me, ‘Well have you actually read the book?’, I can say, ‘Yes, I read it within a day of release,’ and then I can…
Interviews with our work experience students
Over the next few weeks we’re participating in a work experience program with students from high schools across Melbourne. Here, Jemma Sbeghen tells us why it’s important to read the classics, and why she loves All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven.
How would you describe your taste in books?
I’m all for this new wave of YA books that have begun focusing more on mental illness and personal problems, books like The Impossible Knife of Memory and This Song…
On the importance of pictures to encourage young readers
Writers write too much. This is not a revelation but it keeps occurring to me whenever I open a new book that claims to be aimed at new readers of around 5-years-old and over, or what we refer to as ‘Junior Fiction’. My first thought is usually: too many words, too few pictures. And my second is to imagine the children who will look at those pages; to see their little shoulders roll forward in defeat as they decide that…
Our top ten bestsellers of the week
The Mindfulness Colouring Book: Anti-Stress Art Therapy for Busy People by Emma Farrarons
The Eye of the Sheep by Sofie Laguna
Gut: the Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Under-Rated Organ by Giulia Enders
The Other Side of the World by Stephanie Bishop
Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee (All these sales were pre-orders.)
Archipelago of Souls by Gregory Day
We are Here: My Family’s Courageous Journey to Survive by Cat Thao Nguyen
A quick guide to MIFF 2015
Here’s a quick at-a-glance guide to this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival. You can see the full program here, and also find out what Readings staff are seeing here.
Most buzzed about
We recommend: The Lobster Runner up: Force of Destiny
Psychological thriller
We recommend: The WitchRunner up: Sunrise
Book-to-film adaptation
We recommend: Holding the Man Runner up: See all of our book-to-film picks here
Contemporary Australian drama
We recommend: The DaughterRunner up: Pawno
Tearjerker
We…
What we're reading: Hoa Pham, Moira Fowley-Doyle and Fiona Wright
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.
Emily Gale is reading The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle
Months ago I was able to sneak a look at the first page of The Accident Season, and it made a strong first impression. The premise immediately appealed – a family (a mother and three teenagers) meet with a series of accidents…
What we're watching at MIFF 2015
Staff share what they’re planning to see at the Melbourne International Film Festival this year! (You can find the full program here).
Nina Kenwood loves American indies
As always, there are a ton of American indie films I want to see: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (I’ll cry, I’ll laugh, my heart will be warmed), Sleeping With Other People (sex comedy starring Alison Brie – I’m in), The Overnight (sex comedy starring Adam Scott – I’m in)…
MIFF picks for literary lovers
This year’s Melbourne International Film Festival is filled with book-to-film (and play-to-film) adaptations. Here are our picks of the bunch.
The End of the Tour (James Ponsoldt, USA)
Tasked with writing a profile on author David Foster Wallace for Rolling Stone, David Lipsky joined Wallace on a publicity tour for Infinite Jest. His book, Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself is based on this road trip and the conversations they have. And now, it’s been adapted…
Literary stats for data nerds
Data nerds! We’ve compiled some statistics for the first half of this year and turned them into beautiful infographics for your appreciation.
A note about the data: the sales data in this report comes from our weekly top 10 bestseller lists (see an example here). This data excludes children’s bestsellers. Further statistics were gathered from our weekly ‘what we’re reading’ column (see an example here), our review list and all the events listed in our Readings Monthly newsletter.
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