Melbourne City Reads boosts sales, ‘camaraderie and solidarity’
Friday, 27 August 2021
Inner-city Melbourne bookshops report increased sales as a direct result of the Melbourne City Reads scheme, which launched at the start of August and each month offers 25% off the...
Bookselling in a pandemic: 18 months later
Monday, 23 August 2021
Brunswick Bound manager Ellen Cregan travelled to the United States in March 2020 as part of Melbourne City of Literature’s Bookseller in Residence program. Although her trip was cut short...
Corey Tutt recommends
Wednesday, 18 August 2021
My dear friend Terri Janke has just released a book called True Tracks (UNSW Press), which features a number of friends and distant relatives. I loved it because IP in...
Corey Tutt on ‘The First Scientists’
Wednesday, 18 August 2021
Kamilaroi STEM advocate and founder of Deadly Science Corey Tutt is the author of The First Scientists (illus by Blak Douglas, Hardie Grant, October), which explores early and contemporary First...
Celebrating 75 years of the CBCA Book of the Year Award
Wednesday, 18 August 2021
The Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book Week—supported by a joint campaign by the ABA and the ASA encouraging people to 'shop local, read local'—kicks off this week following...
Melbourne City of Lit meets Angoulême’s La librairie de la bande dessinée et de l’image
Wednesday, 11 August 2021
In this series, run in partnership with the Melbourne City of Literature Office, we get to know some of the bookstores in the UNESCO Cities of Literature network. Angoulême in Southwestern...
Jennifer Down on ‘Bodies of Light’
Tuesday, 10 August 2021
Jennifer Down's third book Bodies of Light (Text, October) follows protagonist Maggie as she reluctantly revisits a past she's fought to keep buried. Reviewer Jacqui Davies says 'despite its bleak...
September reviews round-up
Wednesday, 4 August 2021
In September, our reviewers enjoyed several forthcoming novels exploring themes of change, identity and relationships from Max Easton, Amal Awad and Jacquie Byron. Easton’s The Magpie Wing paints a ‘moving...
Reps off the road: Mandy Wildsmith on repping during lockdown
Wednesday, 4 August 2021
While the Covid-19 pandemic is far from over, some semblance of normality is on the horizon. Here, Mandy Wildsmith from Hardie Grant Books reflects on the past year of life...
Cat Rabbit on ‘How to Make Friends: A Bear’s Guide’
Wednesday, 4 August 2021
Cat Rabbit is a textile artist and designer based in Melbourne. In her latest picture book, How to Make Friends: A Bear's Guide (Berbay, October), Rabbit explores the struggles of...
Christmas in July: children’s and YA
Wednesday, 28 July 2021
Last week Books+Publishing brought you a round up of Australian publishers' top adult titles releasing time for Christmas 2021. Here are their children's and young adult picks. Picture books Scholastic’s...
Diana Reid on ‘Love & Virtue’
Wednesday, 28 July 2021
Diana Reid's debut novel Love & Virtue (Ultimo, October) explores feminism, power and sex through the lives of two young women at an Australian university. Reviewer Georgia Brough calls Love &...
Melbourne City of Lit meets Quebec’s Librairie Hannenorak
Wednesday, 28 July 2021
In this series, run in partnership with the Melbourne City of Literature Office, we get to know some of the bookstores in the UNESCO Cities of Literature network. In 2009,...
Christmas in July
Wednesday, 21 July 2021
Books+Publishing rounds up Australian publishers' top local adult titles releasing in time for Christmas 2021. Literary highlights Hannah Kent’s hotly anticipated third novel Devotion (Picador, November), set in 19th-century South...
Annie Raser-Rowland on ‘Let’s Eat Weeds!’
Tuesday, 20 July 2021
Annie Raser-Rowland is a Melbourne-based horticulturalist and artist. She is the co-author (with Adam Grubb) of Let's Eat Weeds (Scribble, September), a guidebook for young readers on which weeds are...
Max Easton on ‘The Magpie Wing’
Wednesday, 14 July 2021
The Magpie Wing (Giramondo, September) is Max Easton's first book of fiction. Set in western Sydney, the novel follows the relationships between three young adults as they explore subcultures and identities. Reviewer...
Melbourne City of Lit meets Edinburgh’s Typewronger Books
Wednesday, 14 July 2021
In this series, run in partnership with the Melbourne City of Literature Office, we get to know some of the bookstores in the UNESCO Cities of Literature network. Down a...
Poppy Nwosu on ‘Road Tripping with Pearl Nash’
Wednesday, 7 July 2021
Road Tripping with Pearl Nash (Wakefield, September) is Poppy Nwosu's third romantic novel for young adults. It follows protagonist Pearl Nash on a road trip during the summer holidays before...
August reviews round-up
Wednesday, 7 July 2021
Several highly regarded debut works of fiction coming in August feature millennial protagonists, including Allee Richards’ VPLA Unpublished Manuscript Prize–shortlisted Small Joys of Real Life, which reviewer Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen...
Samantha Rutter on founding new publisher Storytorch during Covid
Wednesday, 7 July 2021
After crowdfunding a successful 2020 children’s book, author Samantha Rutter sought a way to ‘pay it forward’ through a new publishing house focused on celebrating community. She tells Books+Publishing about...
Q&A with Dymocks CEO Mark Newman
Wednesday, 30 June 2021
Dymocks CEO Mark Newman joined the bookselling chain just as the pandemic took hold around the globe. Its effects for Dymocks have been mixed. Newman says that while suburban and...
Melbourne City of Lit meets Nottingham’s Five Leaves Bookshop
Wednesday, 30 June 2021
In this series, run in partnership with the Melbourne City of Literature Office, we get to know some of the bookshops in the UNESCO Cities of Literature network. ‘The shop opened the...
Meet the ABDA Emerging Designers of the Year: Mika Tabata
Wednesday, 23 June 2021
In the lead-up to the 2021 Australian Book Designers Association (ABDA) awards, Books+Publishing spoke to the two shortlisted nominees for Emerging Designer of the Year. In this second instalment we speak to Sydney-based...
Annie Smithers on ‘Recipe for a Kinder Life’
Tuesday, 22 June 2021
Chef, cookbook author and writer Annie Smithers's Recipe for a Kinder Life (Thames & Hudson, August) blends memoir, philosophy and practical tips on sustainability based on the author's experience running...
Meet the ABDA Emerging Designers of the Year: George Saad
Thursday, 17 June 2021
In the lead-up to the 2021 Australian Book Designers Association (ABDA) Awards, Books+Publishing spoke to the two shortlisted nominees for Emerging Designer of the Year. In this first instalment we talk to...
Reading across the ditch: Forthcoming highlights from Aotearoa New Zealand
Thursday, 17 June 2021
Sharing a travel bubble and a relatively compatible time zone, could Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand's respective book industries be looking at each other afresh in this new pandemic era?...
Melbourne City of Lit meets Milan’s Libreria dello Spettacolo
Thursday, 17 June 2021
In this series, run in partnership with the Melbourne City of Literature Office, we get to know some of the bookshops in the UNESCO Cities of Literature network. When, in 1979, Maria...
Career path: Andrew Robertson
Wednesday, 9 June 2021
Andrew Robertson, who began his career at one of Melbourne's most well-loved bookshops, joined NewSouth Books as the account manager for Victoria and Tasmania in 2019. Here he shares his...
Malla Nunn on ‘Sugar Town Queens’
Wednesday, 9 June 2021
Malla Nunn's Sugar Town Queens (A&U, August) is a young adult novel set in Sugar Town, South Africa. This coming-of-age story follows 15-year-old Amandla as she uncovers her family history and...
July reviews round-up
Wednesday, 2 June 2021
Releasing in July are two well-reviewed memoirs about family and intergenerational trauma: Dianne O’Brien’s Daughter of the River Country and Amani Haydar’s The Mother Wound. Although both stories are confronting...
