The Readings Podcast

In this episode, a conversation with two psychologists; father-and-daughter duo Rachel E. Menzies and Ross G. Menzies, the authors of a new book, Being: Why it's harder to be human than a hamster or a herring. Being human is hard. From early childhood, we start to become aware of the difficulties we must all inevitably face. We will battle an inner critic across the entirety of our life. We will never truly know those around us, and time will destroy all we create. Death becomes a reality, and we cannot escape the knowledge that it is coming for us all. These are the problems of being. In this book, the two Menzies – Rachel and Ross – explore what it means to be human, and our shared need for love, meaning and self-understanding. They highlight the power of hope, the role of purpose in wellbeing, and how acceptance is key to a more authentic and joyful life.

Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781761471438/being--rachel-e-menzies-ross-g-menzies--2026--9781761471438

In this episode, a recording taken from the launch of Joanne Wallis and Jack Corbett’s co-authored book ‘Neighbours: Australia and the Pacific’, in which they detail a new vision for our country and our region. Australia has a long history in the Pacific. Many Australians might have forgotten it, but the region has not forgotten us. This book provides an alternative way Australia might relate to its Pacific neighbours. It replaces amnesia with storytelling that emphasises common ancestors, interests and language. It replaces Australian ambivalence with recognition, humility and respect. It does not seek to wish away the realities of asymmetry and hierarchy between Australia and Pacific Island countries, but instead outlines how Australia can work more productively within them. It argues that Australia can only work towards being a better neighbour if it understands its history in the Pacific Islands, and the ideas that have guided its foreign policy in the region for the last two centuries. Tracing the many dimensions of that past engagement, it provides an up-to-date account, written by two highly experienced experts.

Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781760645571/australias-pacific-history--joanne-wallis-jack-corbett--2026--9781760645571

In this episode, a conversation with Chris Ames, author of a debut collection of short stories, I Made This Just For You. The characters in this book are perfect avatars of modern life. They work in tech, take designer drugs, assemble IKEA furniture, pursue beauty matching, and rehabilitate their reputations – all while grappling with a perilous sense of unease, held hostage by economic forces beyond their control. I Made This Just for You lives in weird and flirts with normal. The stories explore the tension between authenticity and performance, as characters navigate the anxieties of modern parenthood, the disorienting nature of loss and memory, and the absurd, often dystopian, intersection of the digital and the real. This savage, sideways collection asks: How do we measure the distance between two people? How can we thrive within our own ceaseless routines? And how are we still drawn together, in spite of our messy, broken ways of knowing?

Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781761154782/i-made-this-just-for-you--chris-ames--2026--9781761154782

In today's 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. This week, Bernard is joined by Readings’ children's book division manager, Kim Gruschow.

This month of July, Readings is both promoting in-store and offering discounts off a broadened array of Graphic Novels, Comics and other related forms of storytelling. Ahead of some marquee releases scheduled for this year, Bernard sat down with Readings’ Kids Buyer Kim Gruschow to point to some favourites and a brief chronology of the graphic novel form in Australia.

Like what you heard? Shop our July graphic novel sale here: https://www.readings.com.au/collections/australian-graphic-novels-for-kids

In this episode, a conversation with novelist and poet Maria Takolander, author of The End of Romance, a new work of dystopian fiction.

It is the future, and the earth has seemingly refused to cooperate with humanity, producing only thorn-bearing plants and caustic fogs in abundance. Life is hard for those who still inhabit urban communities. For those who have chosen to live ‘off-grid’ it is subsistence at best, but at least there is some kind of independence. A woman and her son live alone, surviving as scavengers. Even so, the boy must attend military school like all the other boys. In time he will be shipped off with the rest of them to a distant planet – the Promised Land – to fight the colonising war that is touted as humanity’s only hope. By chance, the woman meets a young man who has avoided this fate, despite his lack of physical impairment. It appears that he comes from a place of sanctuary. Can he lead her back there – and help her to save her son?

In taut, evocative prose, Maria Takolander has conjured an eerie and compelling story of desolation and hope that resonates in the imagination.

Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781925355093/the-end-of-romance--maria-takolander--2026--9781925355093

In this episode, a conversation with writer, social worker and counsellor Laura McPhee-Browne, author of the novel Worry Doll, a thrilling exploration of love and desire – obsessive, all-consuming, and impossible to look away from.

On an ordinary day, two women meet on a train. Heloise – the older woman – lives with her boyfriend in Melbourne. Lacey – the other woman – is from Aotearoa and studies the clouds. What follows is anything but ordinary, a passionate affair that will consume them both in mismatched and maddening ways. Propulsive and lyrical, Worry Doll examines desire, memory, and the delusion of love.

Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781761381850/worry-doll--laura-mcphee-browne--2026--9781761381850

In this episode, a conversation with Madeleine Gray, author of Chosen Family – a queer, epic literary novel for all readers by the award-winning author of the internationally acclaimed bestseller Green Dot.

Books about friendship are not often described as love stories, but this is one. Nell Argall and Eve Bowman are both brilliant, odd and friendless. Traumatised in their first year of high school, their lives are changed forever when they meet. Set in Sydney over eighteen years, Chosen Family follows Nell and Eve as they grow into themselves, as they both love and destroy each other. Can the wounds of adolescent betrayal ever really heal? Can we ever really understand what is going on in someone else’s head?

Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781761635724/chosen-family--madeleine-gray--2025--9781761635724

In today's episode, a recording taken from the Melbourne launch of Tony Albert’s incredible new art book, Not A Souvenir, a landmark monograph that celebrates an artist, curator and cultural leader, whose work reshapes how we see Aboriginal identity, urging a more honest and hopeful vision of Australia's past and future.

Tony Albert's art reclaims and reframes the imagery of Aboriginal Australia with wit, beauty and force. Across painting, photography, sculpture and installation, his practice explores Aboriginal culture, identity and history through a deeply personal lens. Drawing on individual and collective pasts, Albert transforms the visual language of colonisation – turning objects of prejudice into symbols of resistance, resilience and pride. Not a Souvenir is the most comprehensive publication on the artist to date, tracing his journey as one of Australia's most incisive contemporary voices. Across themes of past, present and future, the book unpacks the many critical questions raised in Albert's work: how do we remember, give justice to and rewrite complex and traumatic histories?

Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781760764555/tony-albert--tony-albert--2026--9781760764555

In this episode, we have a conversation with Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff, co-authors of Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed.

Who on earth is Elon Musk and what is he doing? Is he a hero, a villain, or does he swing constantly between those two poles? According to the constant media gush driven by his every act and pronouncement, Musk is best understood in personal terms. This book argues differently. Rather than seeing Musk as an individual, it sees him as an avatar of something called Muskism: a playbook for our new postliberal age. It’s not that Musk himself holds a coherent set of beliefs; you could say his life is one long improvisation. And he’s certainly never used the word Muskism – just as, a century ago, Henry Ford never used Fordism to define his own postliberal modernity.

In exploring the forces that have shaped Musk, from South Africa to Silicon Valley, Space X to DOGE, Slobodian and Tarnoff outline the motifs and practices that have come to dominate our own crisis-ridden world. Muskism, they show, speaks the language of crisis and emergency to invoke a less human future: where humans are purged from the productive process and, through social media and video games, merged with the machine. This is a worldview in which the technocrat is king; which piggybacks on the state to achieve supremacy; and in which only a select few deserve salvation. If you enter, this book warns you, you will grind and you will live in the shadow of one man – but the rewards could be priceless and the alternative might be extinction.

Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9780241805114/muskism--quinn-slobodian-ben-tarnoff--2026--9780241805114

In this week's episode, we're doing something a little different. As Readings celebrates Australian Fiction throughout June, we're turning to the people who spend every day talking about books: our booksellers. Australian writers have shaped our literary culture and found readers around the world, yet they can still be overlooked in international conversations about great literature. Rather than trying to define a canon, we've asked Readings staff across our Melbourne shops to share the Australian novels they return to, recommend and love. From literary classics to contemporary favourites, these are passionate, personal recommendations celebrating the extraordinary breadth of Australian storytelling.