The Readings Podcast

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  Louise Kennedy in Conversation 08.10.2026 37分

  In this episode, a conversation with Louise Kennedy, the prize-winning author of Trespasses, who returns with a new book, Stations, a devastating story of love and friendship, and a tender portrait of the choices we blithely make when we are young, unaware that the consequences will reverberate throughout our lives. Róisín and Red meet as teenagers in their small Irish hometown in 1982. Brilliant, sharp-tongued and born to slip through the cracks, Red's reputation for trouble precedes him – but Róisín finds herself swept up in his storm, and soon their connection deepens. When a brush with the law pushes Red into a corner, he escapes their town to start a new life in England. As the years pass, they remain tethered to one another, a fragile thread holding their once fierce friendship together. When Róisín arrives in London, the promise of freedom, of reinvention, and of finding her dear friend calls. But searching for Red leads Róisín to a truth darker than she could have imagined: when you go looking for someone you may uncover parts of yourself along the way that you'd rather stayed buried. And Red – bright, beautiful Red – might not want to be found at all. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781526664334/stations--louise-kennedy--2026--9781526664334
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  Bruce Pascoe in Conversation 05.10.2026 36分

  In this episode, a conversation with Bruce Pascoe, author of the ground-breaking book Dark Emu, and an Aboriginal farmer and writer of other works of literary fiction, poetry, essays and children’s literature. Pascoe has returned with a new work of non-fiction, The European Mind. In this book, Pascoe synthesises history, memoir and philosophy, and identifies the persistence of the colonial power structures and thinking that European colonists brought to the world, and the hope for remedy that lies in remembering certain Indigenous ways of being. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781922864673/the-european-mind--bruce-pascoe--2026--9781922864673
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  Lara Pawson in Conversation 02.10.2026 44分

  In this episode, a conversation with Lara Pawson, author of Spent Light, a startling new hybrid book – fiction, memoir, history, essay – which grants us a perspective on the world with fresh eyes, and implores us to not look away. An unnamed woman contemplates the toaster she’s inherited from a neighbour. A homely object, hardly worthy of a sonnet or still-life. And yet, thinking of where its parts originated, who assembled it, and how it arrived at her door, could it not be considered as a source of awe? There is nothing else in contemporary writing quite like this quest to think through the common objects that make up a comfortable life. Pawson makes us see in them all the parameters of history, slavery, genocide, as well as the joy of work, care, physical pleasure – until we realise that this extraordinary book is also a love story. Our female narrator’s unrelenting focus on the details of domestic living spirals into moments of dark humour. Pawson’s courageous thought associations allow us to, perhaps, apprehend the darkness and light in our shared humanity. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781923670112/spent-light--laura-pawson--2026--9781923670112
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  Min Jin Lee in Conversation 28.09.2026 1時間 18分

  In today's episode, a conversation with Min Jin Lee, the acclaimed author of the major global bestseller Pachinko, who has returned with American Hagwon – a breathtaking contemporary epic that follows one family as they reckon with ambition and moderation, love and loyalty, personal dreams and familial duty. Min Jin Lee was joined in conversation by Raeden Richardson, to discuss this new book. John and Helen Koh and their three children – Bo, DH and Mido – are building new lives in Korea when they find their worlds upended, first by a terrible betrayal and then by the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Striving to regain their footing, the Kohs set out to do whatever it takes to provide for their children’s futures. They leave Seoul for Sydney and eventually settle in California, where new opportunities open for the Koh children, as the parents, strangers in a strange land, adjust to a difficult existence in which their qualifications mean little. Their way forward is lit by the faith that education will lead the next generation to the success and security that have eluded their parents. The Kohs, their friends, relatives and even their foes move in and out of each other’s lives as they navigate love, work, fortune and fulfilment across the years. But with each new sacrifice and fresh horizon, larger questions begin to open up before them: what are we willing to give up to secure the happiness of the ones we love? What is the purpose of education? And what is truly important for a good life? The titular Hagwon refers to the private, for-profit educational institutes or cram schools in South Korea that provide additional classes outside of regular school hours – by now a near-mandatory extracurricular activity for many of the country’s youth. Building on this, in American Hagwon, Min Jin Lee has crafted a transcendent, panoramic novel of profound emotional richness, where the smallest of gestures can have enormous repercussions. This is the most ambitious and extraordinary work yet by one of our greatest novelists. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9780008823917/american-hagwon--min-jin-lee--2026--9780008823917
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  Michael Dulaney in Conversation 25.09.2026 48分

  In this episode, a conversation with writer and reporter Michael Dulaney, author of a new nonfiction book, Sentinels. Humans have long observed animals for advanced warnings of danger – but what can they tell us about the growing threat of contagion in the age of climate change? Diseases today reveal our close ties to animals. Viruses leap from bats to camels to humans. Cats catch the flu, and tourists pass tuberculosis to elephants. In recent years, however, something has changed. Exploitation of the environment is causing more diseases to jump species than ever before – a threat to life that rivals climate change. The science is clear: the cause of this great acceleration is us. In Sentinels, Michael Dulaney takes readers from southern China to the Andes, from the Arctic to Australia, to tell the gripping stories of the people and animals at the forefront of this enormous change. Dulaney joins ecologists tracking flying foxes through Australia’s eastern forests, and frog hunters netting endangered species on Indonesian mountains. Along the way, we meet lemmings that resist global warming, coastal seals with bird flu, and genetically engineered disease-proof pigs. Combining vivid field reporting with natural history, these stories move beyond the fear of contagion to explore the beauty and resilience of life, and the human capacity to regenerate as much as to destroy. Urgent, moving, and deeply informed, Sentinels is an essential reckoning with our intimate connection to nature, but also a call to build a fairer world for all. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781761381409/sentinels--michael-dulaney--2026--9781761381409
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  Margot McGovern in Conversation 25.09.2026 32分

  In this episode, another instalment of the Readings Kids Podcast, with Margo McGovern, author of Our Dark Unravelling, a thrilling modern gothic tale. When Jude Sinclair is killed in a hunting accident, Lyssa and George feel like their lives have been upended. George is angry – she and Jude have unfinished business – while Lyssa is bereft, unable to accept that he’s gone. In the wake of his death, Lyssa’s behaviour becomes strange. She disappears at night and seems increasingly exhausted and sick. When George questions her, Lyssa confides that she’s spending her nights with Jude, and an escalating series of disturbing events convinces their classmates that Jude has returned. George assumes Lyssa is responsible for the ‘hauntings’ and decides to follow her at night. She is horrified about what she learns and knows that if it continues, it’s sure to cost Lyssa her life … Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781761346309/our-dark-unravelling--margot-mcgovern--2026--9781761346309
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  Poetry Reading: Friday Night Poets 22.09.2026 49分

  In this episode, a recording taken from a sold-out Friday Night Poets session, held at Readings Carlton and hosted by Tim Loveday. This event featured readings from the poets Anders Villani, Andrew Sutherland and Paris Rosemont. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase Anders Villani's 'Nespola': https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781764106887/nespola--anders-villani--2026--9781764106887 Click here to purchase Andrew Sutherland's 'Act Cute': https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781760995157/act-cute--andrew-sutherland--2025--9781760995157 Click here to purchase Paris Rosemont's 'Barefoot Poetess': https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781923044456/barefoot-poetess--2025--9781923044456
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  James Crawford in Conversation 18.09.2026 1時間 7分

  In this episode, a conversation with broadcaster and writer James Crawford, author of The Vanishing Earth: A Journey Through the Last Days of Abundance, a deeply reported journey into the scarred landscapes of global extraction. Humanity has remade the Earth with astonishing speed. In the last fifty years alone we have taken more out of the planet than in all prior history combined. Across every continent lie the immense wounds left behind by extraction: the mines, quarries, poisoned rivers and hollowed-out towns that now form the true map of our civilisation and our age. Everything we touch – rock, metal, sand, water, even thought itself – feeds the reckless dream pursuit of limitless economic growth. Born into a family and landscape steeped in fossil fuels, James Crawford travels through the living ruins of extraction and meets the people living within its extremes: exploring the radioactive fertiliser-ziggurats of Florida’s Bone Valley, the lithium flats of the Atacama, Greenland’s collapsing melt-edge, the desertified shores of Spain’s Sea of Plastic, and the resource-hungry cloud centres birthing new artificial intelligences, to expose the true cost of this hollowed-out dream. Yet within these same landscapes lie radical alternatives. Hope emerges in the communities waging legal battles to leave oil untouched beneath the rainforests of Ecuador and the wildfire-stricken plains of Montana; technologists attempting to reverse extraction on Iceland’s tundra; and architects raising wooden skyscrapers amid Scandinavia’s felled forests – finding the path to repair for a world pushed to the brink. Incisive, immersive and visionary, The Vanishing Earth exposes the ideological forces that have shaped the planet and charts the essential pathways that could yet save it. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781761382116/the-vanishing-earth--james-crawford--2026--9781761382116
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  Tamara Moss in Conversation 18.09.2026 28分

  In this episode, a special conversation with Young Adult and Middle Grade Fiction writer Tamara Moss, author of a new book, Five Voices, a thrilling and addictive YA murder mystery. ‘Five Voices’ is the highly popular podcast founded by five friends – Rosie, William, Simone, Zac, and Ocean – who debate contentious issues while playing classic board games. Until one night when, an hour after a huge argument during a recording session of the podcast, William is found dead. Everyone claims innocence, but something doesn't add up ... somebody must be lying. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781761182761/five-voices--tamara-moss--2026--9781761182761
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  Anna Heyward in Conversation 11.09.2026 29分

  In this episode, a conversation with Anna Heyward, animal behavioural scientist and New Yorker writer, and author of a new memoir: Living with Freddie, a book about seeing the world from the point of view of man's best – and oft misunderstood – friend, the dog. When Anna Heyward adopted a rescued Italian greyhound, she was thrilled to bring a dog into her life. But Freddie, she quickly realised, had severe separation anxiety, unable to be left alone for more than thirty seconds without crying uncontrollably, biting his own tail or scratching at his body. While some would have given the dog back, writing him off as a 'bad dog', Anna transformed her life. She took Freddie to work and hid him from her boss. Her social life withered. Her relationship with her fiancé began to flounder. She dedicated her life to entering the mind of her dog. As Anna observed Freddie's behaviour, she began to experience the world as he did: the quality of light, the timbre of sound; a leaf falling from a tree. And she changed – but not in the way you might expect. This is a meditation on what it means to be bad or good, on how much we can – or should – try to alter another being's behaviour, and on what is possible to know about another mind. But at its heart, Living With Freddie is a beautiful portrait of the relationship between a human and a dog. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9780733654800/living-with-freddie--anna-heyward--2026--9780733654800
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  Alice Pung in Conversation 08.09.2026 32分

  In this episode, a conversation with Alice Pung, to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of her landmark memoir, and a bona fide modern Australian classic, Unpolished Gem. In a wonderland called Footscray, a girl named Alice and her Chinese-Cambodian family pursue the Australian Dream – Asian style. Armed with an ocker accent, Alice dives head-first into schooling, romance and the getting of wisdom. Her mother becomes an Aussie battler – an outworker, that is. Her father embraces the miracle of franchising and opens an electrical-appliance store. And every day her grandmother blesses Father Government for giving old people money. Unpolished Gem is a book rich in comedy, a loving and irreverent portrait of a family, its everyday struggles and bittersweet triumphs, and a longstanding Readings favourite. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781760645762/unpolished-gem--alice-pung--2026--9781760645762
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  Robyn Dennison in Conversation 04.09.2026 30分

  In this episode, a conversation with novelist Robyn Dennison, author of a new crime novel, In Plain Sight. This story follows Detective Lara Wilton, a sex-crimes detective who returns to her home town to investigate disturbing photographs found on a USB. But the twin sisters at the centre of the case are guarding secrets of their own, and without their cooperation, the investigation can go nowhere. Exploring the complicated relationship between evidence, justice and personal agency, In Plain Sight is a gripping literary crime novel about the constraints of the law and the blurred boundaries between professional and personal lives. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781923670068/in-plain-sight--robyn-dennison--2026--9781923670068
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  The Readings New Australian Fiction Prize Shortlist 31.08.2026 42分

  In this episode, we’re presenting conversations with Readings booksellers who have participated in judging this year’s Readings New Australian Fiction Prize. With the shortlist of works announced today, we thought it would be a great opportunity to share reflections and observations from judges about their favourite books from this year’s shortlist. The Readings Prize has been celebrating outstanding new Australian writing since the prize was first awarded in 2014, and we’re incredibly proud of the impact we’ve had as champions of emerging authors in that time. This year’s winner will be announced Tuesday 27 October, and there will be a live celebration, but until then, do listen in to hear from our booksellers on the shortlisted books for this year’s prize. Enjoy what you heard? Head to the Readings website to check out the books mentioned in this episode: https://www.readings.com.au/news/the-readings-new-australian-fiction-prize-2026-shortlist
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  Poetry Reading: Ghayath Almadhoun & Ender Başkan 28.08.2026 24分

  In this episode, something special from our archive. Last year, Readings Carlton hosted Syrian-Palestinian poet Ghayath Almadhoun for a reading and conversation with another poet, Readings bookseller Ender Başkan. Fluid and unselfconscious, Ghayath Almadhoun writes love poems in the shape of nightmares:, andI have brought you a severed hand is a surreal mix of absurd humour, heteroerotic lust and dead seriousness. Caught between two exiles, the one inherited from his Palestinian father and the one he chose and lives, Almadhoun attempts to explain water and tame hope. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781739843120/i-have-brought-you-a-severed-head--ghayath-almadhoun--2025--9781739843120
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  Kids Podcast – Suzy Zail in Conversation 25.08.2026 39分

  In this episode, another instalment of the Readings Kids Podcast, hosted by Readings Prize and Readings Foundation coordinator Angela Crocombe. Angela was joined by members of the Teen Advisory Board for a discussion with Suzy Zail, author of A New Kind of Beautiful, a moving YA novel about love, loss, and the beauty in the things we can't always see. Paige Wilding has her future mapped out – the Year 10 Art prize. Graduation. A coveted spot in an elite art school in New York. But when she's diagnosed with an incurable eye disease, the perfect life she’s planned starts to blur. She makes a choice to keep her condition secret and live louder, love wilder, and paint like her life depends on it. Only her best friend Jazz knows the truth, and is helping her cram a lifetime of colour into a single year. But as her sight fades and she’s forced to give up painting, it’s Zac, her rival for the art prize, who helps Paige find a way back to her art and a new kind of beautiful; messy and imperfect but also raw, unfiltered and fiercely alive. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781760653743/a-new-kind-of-beautiful--suzy-zail--2026--9781760653743
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  Tom Griffiths in Conversation 25.08.2026 40分

  In this episode, a recording taken from the Melbourne launch of Tom Griffiths’ new book, Alice’s dreaming, an astonishing work of history about a girl and the Indigenous world she encountered. Early last century, Alice Duncan-Kemp grew up on a remote Queensland cattle station. Later she would write down her childhood memories of learning from Aboriginal women and men at home on their own Country. In her books, she evoked a rich parallel universe of storytelling and lore, which she felt privileged to witness. She also spoke of an informal local treaty that curbed the violence of the frontier. What are we to make of 'Alice's dreaming' today? Master historian and writer Tom Griffiths takes us into – and beyond – this revelatory encounter. Through it we glimpse the turmoil of a complex and tragic frontier, and a remarkable story of survival and cultural resilience. In recent years, the Mithaka people Alice lived among and wrote about have reclaimed their Country, drawing in part on her writing to support their claims. Alice's dreaming shows how moving, intimate – and unexpected – history can be. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781760646240/alices-dreaming--tom-griffiths--2026--9781760646240
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  Amanda Curtin in Conversation 21.08.2026 33分

  In this episode, a conversation with Amanda Curtin, author of a new novel – Six Days. Daniel, an expatriate Australian who has lived in Paris for more than forty years, has made a mess of his life and is trying to atone, to become the ‘good man’ his friend Marcelline believes him to be. But Marcelline has disappeared, the quotidian world has been tipped out of balance and Daniel makes an error of judgment that places at risk everything he values. The novel’s six-day narrative, set in the Latin Quarter of Paris in the winter of 2012, expands into lifetimes, histories, as interconnecting stories weave through Daniel’s. Stories of abandonment and fractured families, rape and coercion, addiction, ambition, loss and grief, are told in moments and set within the context of war and occupation, the revolutionary sixties, riots in a Catalan town in the south of France, a grassroots movement to make visible the invisible homeless. The personal stitched into, and inseparable from, the political. And throughout, the constant of footsteps and pawpatter as Daniel and his old dog walk the streets of one of the most idealised and romanticised cities on earth. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781764239745/six-days--amanda-curtin--2026--9781764239745
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  The Comics Question: Aki Fukuoka in Conversation with Bernard Caleo 18.08.2026 38分

  In this episode, another instalment of the Comics Question, where Bernard Caleo discusses comics, graphic novels, and the place they inhabit within the broader books and publishing world. Bernard was joined by Aki Fukuoka, children’s book illustrator and graphic novelist, who has worked on over 80 children’s books, most notably including Sally Rippin’s beloved Billie B Brown series. The two met to discuss the newest iteration in this series, a first graphic novel collaboration for Rippin and Fukuoka, and how, for Aki, this form of children’s illustration is inextricably linked to another illustrated storytelling tradition, that of Japanese comics, or Manga. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781761216404/spooky-house-volume-1--sally-rippin--2026--9781761216404
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  Lenny Robinson in Conversation 14.08.2026 36分

  In this episode, a conversation with Lenny Robinson, author of And in the Morning, a prismatic gem of a debut novel that reflects the experiences of women across three wars and the damage done to the men they love. In the winter of 1919, Lily and her three-year-old son, Ted, rush through the streets of Melbourne to welcome home Lily’s husband, Bert, who has spent the last four years fighting with the Light Horse in the Middle East. Twenty-three years later, as the same city awaits a Japanese invasion, Frankie, a young servicewoman on a night’s leave, meets an airman, Ed, at a dance. Almost three decades on, as Melbourne convulses with anti-war protests, single mother Fran prepares a funeral for her only son, a young conscript killed in Vietnam. And in the Morning is a novel about war and the ways in which its tragedies, both great and small, transform the intimate lives of the mothers, wives and lovers who must live with its consequences. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9780702268847/and-in-the-morning--lenny-robinson--2026--9780702268847
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  Simon Reynolds in Conversation 11.08.2026 47分

  In today's episode, a conversation with Simon Reynolds, acclaimed music writer and journalist, and author of a new book, Still in a Dream: Shoegaze, Slackers and the Reinvention of Rock, 1984-1994. Twenty years after his acclaimed postpunk best-seller, Rip It Up and Start Again, Simon Reynolds tells the tale of what happened next: the underground explosion of noisepop, shoegaze, slacker rock and grunge that reverberated through the mid-Eighties into the early Nineties. Capturing the musical exhilaration of the era along with the alienation of youth during a period of ascendant conservative politics and glitzy mainstream pop, Still in a Dream celebrates a golden age of guitar reinvention, a second psychedelia of mind-blowing sounds pioneered by bands like My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth. In Britain, groups like Cocteau Twins and Slowdive escaped into shimmering dreamworlds while American underground rockers like Dinosaur Jr. and Pavement blended apathy and urgency into thrilling noise. A propulsive and personal account from a journalist who covered this music in real time from the frontlines, Still in a Dream vividly recreates a period that was the last blast for the analogue culture of vinyl records and music papers, before the Internet changed everything. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781399618373/still-in-a-dream--simon-reynolds--2026--9781399618373