The Readings Podcast

In this episode, a conversation with Fiona Hardy, author of Old Games, a pacey, off-beat Aussie crime story about two best female friends and investigators unravelling the private lives of Melbourne's celebrity sportspeople.

Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781761638275/old-games--fiona-hardy--2026--9781761638275

Morally flexible best mates and private investigators Alice and Teddy pride themselves on fixing every kind of mess imaginable, no questions asked. So, when they're tasked with locating the recently-stolen ashes of long-dead celebrity tennis player Ashley “Perry” Perrineau, it should be a routine job. But it quickly becomes clear that everyone who knew Perry is keeping secrets: his accountant despises Perry's widower; the sculptor of his statue is hiding something in her studio; his ex-doubles partner is a compulsive liar; and his mother is obsessed with preserving his legacy and her image at all costs.

Alice and Teddy will need to travel up and down Melbourne’s Mornington Peninsula – all while avoiding more than one person on their tail – to uncover the truth and keep the body count from rising. But will they and the people they love survive what they find?

In this episode, a conversation with Alister Newstead, a music journalist, reporter and music editor with Triple J and Double J, and author of a new book in the 33 1/3 series on Tame Impala’s landmark album, Currents. The album is emblematic of a cultural shift in music production and consumption in the early days of streaming and a project that cemented its creator, Kevin Parker, as one of Australian music's most unlikely success stories and influential exports.

This book dives deep into Currents, examining its context, creation, content and lasting impact on the history of Australian popular music. The album's theme of metamorphosis and genre-blurring sound embodied (and possibly encouraged) a wider shift in the 2010s of popular music trends, consumption and listening habits.

Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9798765137017/tame-impalas-currents--alister-newstead--2026--9798765137017

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.

Today’s conversation is with cartoonist Georgina Chadderton, who, in her new book Oh Brother, examines the fun and difficult parts of growing up alongside her autistic brother, Rob. Although Georgina has been published all over the globe, Oh Brother is her first full-length graphic novel.

When they're not making comics, Georgina co-directs Papercuts Comics Festival, runs comics-making workshops and reads comics by their favourite comics makers (basically, it’s all comics, all the time).

Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781761046346/oh-brother--georgina-chadderton--2026--9781761046346

In this episode, a conversation with poet and writer, Hasib Hourani, author of rock flight. This is a book-length poem that, over seven chapters, follows a personal and historical narrative to compose an understated yet powerful allegory of Palestine’s occupation. Formally claustrophobic, the poem morphs into irony, declaring everything a box while refusing to exist within one.

Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781923106116/rock-flight--hasib-hourani--2024--9781923106116

In this episode, another instalment of the Readings Kids podcast, and an interview with the author Ruby Jean Cottle, writer of Black River, a mystical new YA series that blends fantasy, sci-fi and romance. Ruby Jean Cottle was interviewed by members of the Readings Teen Advisory Board, who posed questions throughout the conversation.

Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781761631603/black-river-volume-1--ruby-jean-cottle--2025--9781761631603

In this episode, we’re delighted to begin 2026 with an interview with one of Readings’ favourite writers, a key member of Australia’s literary community and a frequent guest (in the interviewer seat) on the Readings Podcast itself, Kate Mildenhall.

Her acclaimed books include Skylarking, The Mother Fault and The Hummingbird Effect, and joining these with publication late last year is The Hiding Place. It’s The White Lotus meets The Slap, in a razor-sharp literary thriller about deception and self-deception, and how far people will go to protect what they feel they ought to have.

Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781761429057/the-hiding-place--kate-mildenhall--2025--9781761429057

In this episode, a conversation with Tony Tulathimutte, author of Rejection, an audacious and original novel-in-stories, following a cast of intricately linked characters as rejection throws their lives and relationships into chaos.

Sharply observant and outrageously funny, Rejection is a provocative plunge into the thorniest problems of modern life: sex, relationships, identity and the internet. We see a tryhard male feminist's passionate allyship turn to a furious and debilitating nihilism as he realizes, over thirty lonely years, that his feminism isn't getting him laid; a young woman's unrequited crush spirals into borderline obsession and the systematic destruction of both her sense of self and her group chat; and witness a shy late bloomer's flailing efforts at a first relationship lead to a life-upending mistake.

As these characters pop up in each other's dating apps and social media feeds, or meet in dimly lit bars and bedrooms, they reveal the ways that our delusions can warp our desire for connection.

Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9780008759384/rejection--tony-tulathimutte--2026--9780008759384

In this episode, a conversation with author Laura Bates, author of The New Age of Sexism.

AI is here, bringing a seismic shift in the way our society operates. Might this mean a future reimagined on equitable terms for women and marginalised groups everywhere? Not unless we fight for it. At present, power remains largely in the hands of a few rich, white men. New AI-driven technologies, with misogyny baked into their design, are putting women in danger, their rights and safety sacrificed at the altar of profitability and reckless speed.

In The New Age of Sexism, Sunday Times bestselling author and campaigner Laura Bates takes us deep into the heart of this rapidly evolving world. She explores the metaverse, confronts deepfake pornography, travels to cyber brothels, tests chatbots, and hears from schools in the grip of online sexual abuse, showing how our lives – from education to work, sex to entertainment – are being infiltrated by easily accessible technologies that are changing the way we live and love. What she finds is a wild west where existing forms of discrimination, inequality and harassment are being coded into the future we will all have little choice about living in – unless we seize this moment to demand change.

Gripping, courageous and eye-opening, The New Age of Sexism exposes a phenomenon we can’t afford to ignore any longer. Our future is on the line. We need to act now, before it is too late.

In this episode, a conversation with author Sarah Housley, author of the new book, Designing Hope.

When did we stop dreaming of a better future? What happened to the science fiction golden age of the 1950s, when futurism flourished as a discipline and drove innovation? As a society, we either struggle to imagine something good for the times to come, or we fail to picture any future at all. Our world is in polycrisis: we face climate breakdown, societal fracturing, governmental collapse, war, and rising inequality. The exciting outcomes we dreamed of, from the space race to wonder material plastic, have brought contingent problems of their own. We haven’t yet developed mainstream and accessible new narratives to replace these failures, and if you ask someone to imagine ‘the future’, they’ll probably still picture flying cars.

Designing Hope resets expectations. Through the lens of four emerging futures, Sarah Housley shows us visions of hope that inspire action and critical thinking about how we’ll live in the decades to come.

In this episode, a conversation with poet Ender Başkan, author of a new book, Two Hundred Million Musketeers.

In this work, Başkan explores the complexities of parenthood and family life, and anxieties about the future his children will grow up in. It maps the shifting trains of thought when one’s attention is drawn in many different directions – between child-rearing and house-keeping, domestic crises, the need to earn a living, and the responsibilities you have to the past as well as to the future, to your own parents and grandparents, as well as to your children.