Jeff Sparrow, author of Crimes Against Nature, discusses the nature of capitalism and our current environmental crisis with fellow author Tony Birch.

Jeff Sparrow in conversation with Tony Birch

The Readings Podcast is a celebration of books, reading and culture. Episodes are published weekly and include author interviews, event recordings, booksellers chatting about their favourite reads, industry insights, and more.

Society & Culture

Personal Journals

History

Philosophy

Places & Travel

In this episode, a conversation with Manisha Anjali, a writer, artist, and teacher, and author of 'Naag Mountain'. 
This book is a journey across oceans, from the Asian subcontinent to the South Seas, a journey about human trafficking on sugar plantations in Fiji and Australia. Anjali brings to life the histories and events, the stories and myths of a displaced and exploited people, that have been lost in time or forgotten or hidden from view. 
Anjali was joined in conversation by Izzy Roberts-Orr, a poet, playwright, broadcaster, arts worker, and a Creative Producer with Red Room Poetry.

Manisha Anjali in conversation

In this episode, a conversation with Ouyang Yu, author, translator, academic, and renowned poet. 

Ouyang Yu’s first collection of stories in English, The White Cockatoo Flowers, is both assured and tender and at times surprisingly funny. It includes stories set in China and Australia that revel in the truth and candour of lived experience and the joys and constraints of language. In this book Ouyang Yu deftly peels back the layers on what it means to move from one culture to another, and what it means to be a writer, a husband, a parent and a stranger on foreign and familiar ground. 

Ouyang Yu was joined in conversation by Alice Pung, a writer and editor whose books include the memoirs Unpolished Gem, Her Father's Daughter, and the novel Laurinda.

Ouyang Yu in conversation

In this episode, a conversation with Winnie Dunn – a Tongan-Australian writer, editor, the General Manager of Sweatshop Literacy Movement, and now author of the novel Dirt Poor Islanders. 

Dunn’s book is a potent, mesmerising novel that opens our eyes to the brutal fractures navigated when growing up between two cultures and the importance of understanding all the many pieces of yourself. 

Winnie Dunn was joined in conversation at Readings Carlton by Evelyn Araluen, poet and literary editor. Araluen’s first book, Dropbear, won the 2022 Stella Prize.

Winnie Dunn in conversation

In today’s episode, a conversation with Amanda Hampson, author of the runaway crime novel success, The Tea Ladies. 

Hampson has returned with a sequel, The Cryptic Clue. It’s set in Zig Zag Lane, in the heart of Sydney's rag-trade district, where our intrepid tea ladies, Hazel, Betty and Irene, have their work cut out. 

Solving a murder, kidnapping and arson case, and outwitting an arch criminal, earned them the respect of a local police officer. Now he needs their assistance to help solve a plot that threatens national security.

Amanda Hampson in conversation

In this episode, a conversation with award-winning writer Steven Carroll, author of Death of a Foreign Gentleman, the first book in a series of post-war literary crime novels featuring Detective Sergeant Stephen Minter. 

Set in Cambridge in 1947, the book is a playful, poignant and absorbing novel, with shades of The Third Man and Brighton Rock, which examines the question of how to live a meaningful life in an indifferent, random, post-God world.

Jeff Sparrow in conversation with Tony Birch

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