Alison Huber
Alison Huber is the head book buyer for Readings. She has been selling books in Melbourne for twenty years. She is also a recovering academic.
Blog post — 22 Apr 2024
Dear Reader with Alison Huber
It should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone that this issue of our beloved Readings Monthly is an absolute cracker, because every issue is, ever since we began publishing…
Review — 25 Mar 2024
No Church in the Wild by Murray Middleton
Murray Middleton won the 2015 Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award, an award for an unpublished manuscript by an author under 35 and known for uncovering writers like Tim Winton, Kate Grenville, and…
Blog post — 1 Mar 2024
The Most Anticipated Books of 2024
It’s that time of year again which I approach with equal parts excitement and dread – when I sit down under the weight of a too-close deadline to a blank…
Review — 23 Oct 2023
The Postcard by Anne Berest & Tina Kover (trans.)
A postcard arrives in the Berest family’s mail in 2003, containing only four handwritten words, each the given name of a relative who died in the Holocaust. ‘Who could have…
Review — 23 Oct 2023
Held by Anne Michaels
Fellow fans of Anne Michaels’ novels will have learnt the art of patience: Michaels’ prize-winning debut, Fugitive Pieces (a key touchstone in my personal reading autobiography, as it will be…
Blog post — 3 Oct 2023
Dear Reader, with Alison Huber
Friends, October is officially O for Overwhelming. I spend each one of these columns trying to cover as many new releases as I can, but there are so many great…
Review — 21 Sep 2023
Body Friend by Katherine Brabon
Body Friend is told by an unnamed narrator who is suffering from a chronic autoimmune illness and living with daily debilitating pain. Her hostile body fights against itself, and to…
Blog post — 12 Sep 2023
Dear Reader, with Alison Huber
As you’ll read in Joe Rubbo’s wonderful piece of writing, the person whose name is synonymous with Readings (and the Australian books and publishing industry at large), Mark Rubbo, has…
Blog post — 8 Aug 2023
Dear Reader, with Alison Huber
I usually make a joke around this time of year that, for book buyers and retail buyers in general, it really is a case of Christmas in July, as many…
Review — 31 Jul 2023
The Sitter by Angela O’Keeffe
In The Sitter, the spirit of Hortense Cézanne – wife of the more famous Paul – is reanimated by the interest of her biographer and coexists in a hotel…