In this episode, a conversation with Andrew Pippos, the author of Lucky’s, awarded the Readings Prize for Fiction, on his new, forthcoming book, The Transformations.
In the fading glow of Australia's print journalism era, The National is more than a newspaper: it's an institution, and the only place that George Desoulis has ever felt at home. A world-weary subeditor with a bookish sensibility and a painful past, George is one of nature's loners. But a late-night encounter with an unorthodox and self-assured reporter, Cassandra Gwan, begins to unravel both of their carefully managed worlds. As the decline of the newspaper enters a desperate stage, George and Cassandra struggle to balance their turbulent relationship with their responsibilities to family, and the compromises each has built their life upon.
With a deft wit and a sharp eye for emotional complexity, Pippos examines the stories we tell ourselves, and the ways people handle grief, guilt and generational change. The Transformations is a novel about endings – of dreams, relationships, institutions – and the chance of new beginnings.
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In this episode, a conversation with Andrew Pippos, the author of Lucky’s, awarded the Readings Prize for Fiction, on his new, forthcoming book, The Transformations.
In the fading glow of Australia's print journalism era, The National is more than a newspaper: it's an institution, and the only place that George Desoulis has ever felt at home. A world-weary subeditor with a bookish sensibility and a painful past, George is one of nature's loners. But a late-night encounter with an unorthodox and self-assured reporter, Cassandra Gwan, begins to unravel both of their carefully managed worlds. As the decline of the newspaper enters a desperate stage, George and Cassandra struggle to balance their turbulent relationship with their responsibilities to family, and the compromises each has built their life upon.
With a deft wit and a sharp eye for emotional complexity, Pippos examines the stories we tell ourselves, and the ways people handle grief, guilt and generational change. The Transformations is a novel about endings – of dreams, relationships, institutions – and the chance of new beginnings.
In this episode, a conversation with Andrew Pippos, the author of Lucky’s, awarded the Readings Prize for Fiction, on his new, forthcoming book, The Transformations.
In the fading glow of Australia's print journalism era, The National is more than a newspaper: it's an institution, and the only place that George Desoulis has ever felt at home. A world-weary subeditor with a bookish sensibility and a painful past, George is one of nature's loners. But a late-night encounter with an unorthodox and self-assured reporter, Cassandra Gwan, begins to unravel both of their carefully managed worlds. As the decline of the newspaper enters a desperate stage, George and Cassandra struggle to balance their turbulent relationship with their responsibilities to family, and the compromises each has built their life upon.
With a deft wit and a sharp eye for emotional complexity, Pippos examines the stories we tell ourselves, and the ways people handle grief, guilt and generational change. The Transformations is a novel about endings – of dreams, relationships, institutions – and the chance of new beginnings.
In this episode, a recording taken from the launch of Monica Raszewski's Crimson Light Polished Wood.
Leonora, a British teacher, has relocated to Melbourne and falls in love with Margaret, a fellow female teacher who three years later dies of cancer. While still grieving for Margaret, Leonora meets and befriends Anna, the Polish woman who lives next door. As Leonora becomes increasingly involved with Anna and her family the novel illuminates with subtle ease the influence Leonora has on Anna's daughter, Lydia, introducing her to the wonderful world of literature and art.
This is a novel about the ways we all long for acceptance and the ways in which those we might feel most in touch with including parents, siblings and mentors can often have different values and views about us. As such it is a beautiful work about art, gender, disappointment, understanding and celebration.
In today’s episode, a conversation with a longtime Readings favourite, Toni Jordan, about her most recent book, Tenderfoot.
The story is set in Brisbane, 1975: Andie Tanner's world is small but whole. Her mum is complicated, but she adores her dad and the kennel of racing greyhounds that live under their house. Andie is a serious girl with plans: finish school with her friends, then apprentice to her father until she can become a greyhound trainer, with dogs of her very own.
But real life rarely goes to plan, and the world is bigger and more complicated than Andie could imagine. When she loses everything she cares about – her family, her friends, the dogs – it's up to Andie to reclaim her future. She will need all her wits to survive this new reality of secrets and half-truths, addictions and crime.
In today’s episode, a conversation with respected journalist and acclaimed novelist Paul Daley, author of a new book, The Leap.
The Leap is an outback town fuelled by fear, churning with corruption, prejudice and misogyny – and blighted by its inescapable history of frontier violence. Into this nightmarish morass falters traumatised British diplomat, Benedict Fotheringham-Gaskill. He’s on his first Australian mission, one seemingly straightforward enough – until he arrives in The Leap to battle a town conspiring against him.
In today’s episode, a conversation with Rhett Davis, author of a new novel, Arborescence.
Bren works for an obscure company with colleagues he's never met, and who might not be real. His partner, Caelyn, is looking for something more but isn't sure what. The only thing she knows for certain is that humans are breaking the world and she's powerless to do anything about it.
Arborescence is a compelling, deeply moving novel about connection and disconnection, ambition and apathy, loss and hope, and how we don't always know what we have until the damage is done.
In today’s episode, a conversation with writer, podcaster and academic Amy Lovat, author of the new novel, Big Feelings, a neurotic, anti-romantic comedy for fans of Fleabag and High Fidelity.
Our protagonist Sadie Thomas is obsessed with love stories, and whether hers stacks up – for the perfect love story is all Sadie has ever wanted. Her parents' story is what rom-com dreams are made of. But, so far, no one has offered the Happily Ever After that Sadie is searching for. In meeting the charismatic Chase, Sadie is ready for her sail-off-into-the-sunset, credits-roll happy ending. But being a self-saboteur, Sadie is left to ponder the mess of how life and love went so wrong.
In this episode, a conversation with writer Samantha Byres, author of the new novel, Dead Ends.
All-round chaos merchant Nell Jenkins has returned to her small hometown to fulfil family duties for the mother and brother she's barely seen since making her escape as a teen. But her homecoming isn't the triumph it should be. She has nothing to show for her time in Sydney but a string of failed relationships, crappy jobs and an ongoing HR complaint against her ex-girlfriend, now former boss. Settling right back into old habits, Nell finds herself sparking a relationship with her dead best friend's brother Mick, as well as the newly arrived and equally unreliable Katya, who is working for the once-famous TV psychic Petronella Bush. Driven by her lust for Katya, an empty bank account and the need to come to terms with two life-defining deaths from her past, Nell is drawn deeper into Petronella's charismatic web.
Dead Ends is a beguiling, big-hearted portrait of love and loss, and the bad decisions we make in their wake.
In this episode, a conversation with Mikayla Bridge, author of the Young Adult Fantasy Novel, Of Flame and Fury.
The book focuses on Phoenix racing: exciting, profitable, deadly. No one knows this better than Kel Varra and her crew, the Crimson Howlers. They live on the edge of survival. When a mysterious tech billionaire offers them a place at his training facility, it gives them hope but also forces Kel to team up with Coup, her arrogant, infuriating rival.
Embroiled in political scheming, volatile phoenix magic and a smouldering romance, Kel and Coup discover a conspiracy that threatens them all.
In this episode, writer and broadcaster Steve Vizard in conversation with Michael Veitch about Vizard’s new book, Nation, Memory, Myth. Vizard brings an original perspective to the foundational myth of Gallipoli as a sacred bearer of Australian national values and identity.
In this scrupulously researched close reading of the Gallipoli mythology, Vizard dissects the elements common to all national myths that transform them into compelling symbolic performances of cultural memory and kinship, unpicking the tensions and explaining the ambiguities embodied within.
In this episode, a conversation with author Jennifer Mills, author of Salvage, a work of suspenseful, deeply human literary speculative fiction, in which two estranged sisters reconnect in the aftermath of ecological and social collapse.
Jude's life has been about survival. She works on rebuilding - fixes roofs, trucks supplies, transports refugees. Tries to stay free from attachments and obligations. But Jude won't talk about her past. Or her sister Celeste, lost in the tragic failure of a space station that was supposed to save her, and the other ultra-rich, from the wreckage of a dying world. When an escape pod falls from the sky, its passenger near death, Jude knows her anonymous existence can't continue. As the fragile peace of her community is put at risk, Jude must re-examine the terms of her survival - and her exile.
Salvage is a gripping novel of literary speculative fiction that asks: what does it mean to care for each other, after the end of the world?
In this episode, a conversation with screenwriter and actor Miranda Nation, author of New Skin, a powerful debut about first love and second chances from a stunning new voice in Australian fiction.
Alex and Leah meet at medical school and form an immediate and intense connection. Over the course of four years, they are caught in the push-pull of passion and betrayal, longing and reunion. Neither can quite give up the relationship, even as they question whether they are good for each other. Years later, when Alex and Leah are drawn together once more, will they make the right choice?
New Skin evokes a coming of age in the 1990s and charts the course of first love and its power to shape who we become.
In this episode, a recording taken from the Melbourne launch of the novel Pissants, by Brandon Jack – former Sydney Swans football player.
In Pissants, the embittered fringe players of an unnamed football club follow rules of their own. Fangs, Stick, Squidman and Shaggers speak in a cryptic code of inside jokes and WhatsApp exchanges, chained to each other by their place on the outskirts of the team.
Together, these characters present a jaw-dropping snapshot of life within the chaotic world of a professional sports club. The psychotic rituals. The dementing cliches. The adulation. The pressure. The broken staff. The despair. The life-saving friendships. The flatlining sexual encounters. The towering egos.
In this episode, a conversation with writer Sophie Quick, author of the new book, The Confidence Woman.
Christina is a single mother living in the Melbourne suburbs, but to her online clients she is the esteemed Dr Ruth Carlisle, an 'executive coach and mindset expert, specialising in high-performing individuals’. Dr Ruth gains her clients' trust through her coaching business, discovering their secrets and deepest fears. Through this elaborate scam, she's saving money for the ultimate unobtainable Australian dream: a home deposit. But when she blunders, and her worlds begin to collide, suddenly everything is at stake.
The Confidence Woman is a novel about more than one kind of confidence game. It explores and hilariously skewers contemporary cults of self-optimisation, while also creating a moving and too-real portrait of what it's like to strive for success (or just security) in a rigged system.
In this episode, a special conversation with Tania Davidge, Executive Director and Chief Curator with Open House Melbourne.
Across Melbourne, every building, street and public place tells a unique story. Shaped by its transformation over time and the diverse communities that live here, the city is more than its bricks and mortar - the city is about people and place. The stories of our city are embedded in its urban landscapes and the people who live, work and play here. The much-loved Open House Weekend sees tens of thousands of people come out to celebrate architecture and the city, and this year, Readings is partnering with the organisation.
To tell us more about the weekend and what is in store, Davidge was joined in conversation by Chris Gordon, the Readings Community Engagement and Programming Manager.
In this episode, New York Times-bestselling author Amie Kaufman, in conversation with members of the Readings Teen Advisory Board. Kaufman’s book Lady’s Knight, co-authored with Meagan Spooner, takes readers on a wild ride through a sapphic romance.
Gwen is tired of hiding – whether it’s her secret role as her father’s blacksmith, her attraction to girls or her desire to become a knight. Lady Isobelle, on the other hand, has never had to hide who she is – until she becomes the grand prize in the Tournament of Dragonslayers. When their paths collide, the two hatch a daring plan: Gwen will joust in the tournament, disguised as ‘Sir Gawain’, with victory bringing freedom for Isobelle – and glory for Gwen.
In this episode, Hugh White, author of a new Quarterly Essay, in conversation with Michael Wesley about Australia’s place in the new global landscape.
Are we ready for our post-American future? In an era of rising danger for all, and dramatic choices for Australia, White explores how the world is changing, and Australia should respond. Under Donald Trump, America's retreat from global leadership has been swift and erratic. China, Russia and India are on the move. White explains the big strategic trends driving the war in Ukraine, and why America has "lost" Asia. He discusses Albanese Labor's record and its post-election choices, and why complacency about the American alliance – including AUKUS – is no longer an option.
This essential essay urges us to make our way in a hard new world with realism and confidence.
In this episode, a conversation with writer Tyler Jenke, author of an in-depth look at the rise of enigmatic Australian rock band TISM, the unexpected success of their 1995 album, Machiavelli and the Four Seasons, and the continued trajectory of their storied career.
Focusing on one of Australia's most enigmatic bands, This Is Serious Mum (better known as TISM), Jenke forms an analysis of the anonymous, pseudonymous Melbourne collective's rise to prominence and unlikely success on the popular music charts with their third album, Machiavelli and the Four Seasons (1995).
Jenke details TISM's origins as they slowly went from a bedroom concept to an underground success to a staple of concert stages and commercial radio in Australia, growing a rabid fanbase in the process.
In this episode, a recording taken from the launch of acclaimed author Laura Elvery’s novel, Nightingale, inspired by the life of Florence Nightingale; part historical fiction, part ghost story, and utterly original.
Mayfair, 1910. At the age of ninety, Florence Nightingale is frail and no longer of sound mind. After a storied career as a nurse, writer and statistician, she now leads a reclusive existence. One summer evening she is astonished to receive a visitor – a young man named Silas Bradley, who claims to have met her during the Crimean War fifty-five years ago. But how can this be? And how does the elusive Jean Frawley connect their two lives?
In this eagerly anticipated novel, Laura Elvery shows why she is one of the most lauded writers of her generation. Nightingale is a luminous tale of faith and love, bravery and care, and the vitality of women's work.
In this episode, a conversation with author Kimberley Allsopp, author of Love and Other Puzzles, and a new book, Rise and Shine.
Charming, wryly funny, poignant and original - Rise and Shine is a love story, yes, but it's a love story that happens ten years into a marriage, when somebody wants out. It is also a story about life, love and happiness, and in the absence of happiness, what we need to do to find it again.
Rise and Shine is an utterly surprising delight, a break-up tale that is also a love story; endearing, astringent and original.
In this episode, a conversation with the bestselling author of The Truth About Her, Jacqueline Maley. Maley’s new book, Lonely Mouth, is a tender and vivid novel about the conflicted way women think about their bodies, their appetites, and themselves in the world.
In this episode, a conversation with Andrew Pippos, the author of Lucky’s, awarded the Readings Prize for Fiction, on his new, forthcoming book, The Transformations.
In the fading glow of Australia's print journalism era, The National is more than a newspaper: it's an institution, and the only place that George Desoulis has ever felt at home. A world-weary subeditor with a bookish sensibility and a painful past, George is one of nature's loners. But a late-night encounter with an unorthodox and self-assured reporter, Cassandra Gwan, begins to unravel both of their carefully managed worlds. As the decline of the newspaper enters a desperate stage, George and Cassandra struggle to balance their turbulent relationship with their responsibilities to family, and the compromises each has built their life upon.
With a deft wit and a sharp eye for emotional complexity, Pippos examines the stories we tell ourselves, and the ways people handle grief, guilt and generational change. The Transformations is a novel about endings – of dreams, relationships, institutions – and the chance of new beginnings.
