In this episode, a recording taken from the Melbourne launch of the novel Pissants, by Brandon Jack – former Sydney Swans football player. 

In Pissants, the embittered fringe players of an unnamed football club follow rules of their own. Fangs, Stick, Squidman and Shaggers speak in a cryptic code of inside jokes and WhatsApp exchanges, chained to each other by their place on the outskirts of the team. 

Together, these characters present a jaw-dropping snapshot of life within the chaotic world of a professional sports club. The psychotic rituals. The dementing cliches. The adulation. The pressure. The broken staff. The despair. The life-saving friendships. The flatlining sexual encounters. The towering egos.

Brandon Jack in conversation

In this episode, a conversation with author Jennifer Mills, author of Salvage, a work of suspenseful, deeply human literary speculative fiction, in which two estranged sisters reconnect in the aftermath of ecological and social collapse. 

Jude's life has been about survival. She works on rebuilding - fixes roofs, trucks supplies, transports refugees. Tries to stay free from attachments and obligations. But Jude won't talk about her past. Or her sister Celeste, lost in the tragic failure of a space station that was supposed to save her, and the other ultra-rich, from the wreckage of a dying world. When an escape pod falls from the sky, its passenger near death, Jude knows her anonymous existence can't continue. As the fragile peace of her community is put at risk, Jude must re-examine the terms of her survival - and her exile. 

Salvage is a gripping novel of literary speculative fiction that asks: what does it mean to care for each other, after the end of the world?

Jennifer Mills in conversation

In this episode, writer and broadcaster Steve Vizard in conversation with Michael Veitch about Vizard’s new book, Nation, Memory, Myth. Vizard brings an original perspective to the foundational myth of Gallipoli as a sacred bearer of Australian national values and identity. 

In this scrupulously researched close reading of the Gallipoli mythology, Vizard dissects the elements common to all national myths that transform them into compelling symbolic performances of cultural memory and kinship, unpicking the tensions and explaining the ambiguities embodied within.

Steve Vizard in conversation

In this episode, a conversation with Mikayla Bridge, author of the Young Adult Fantasy Novel, Of Flame and Fury. 

The book focuses on Phoenix racing: exciting, profitable, deadly. No one knows this better than Kel Varra and her crew, the Crimson Howlers. They live on the edge of survival. When a mysterious tech billionaire offers them a place at his training facility, it gives them hope but also forces Kel to team up with Coup, her arrogant, infuriating rival. 

Embroiled in political scheming, volatile phoenix magic and a smouldering romance, Kel and Coup discover a conspiracy that threatens them all.

Mikayla Bridge in conversation

In today’s episode, a conversation with Rhett Davis, author of a new novel, Arborescence. 

Bren works for an obscure company with colleagues he's never met, and who might not be real. His partner, Caelyn, is looking for something more but isn't sure what. The only thing she knows for certain is that humans are breaking the world and she's powerless to do anything about it. 

Arborescence is a compelling, deeply moving novel about connection and disconnection, ambition and apathy, loss and hope, and how we don't always know what we have until the damage is done.

Rhett Davis in conversation

In today’s episode, a conversation with respected journalist and acclaimed novelist Paul Daley, author of a new book, The Leap. 

The Leap is an outback town fuelled by fear, churning with corruption, prejudice and misogyny – and blighted by its inescapable history of frontier violence. Into this nightmarish morass falters traumatised British diplomat, Benedict Fotheringham-Gaskill. He’s on his first Australian mission, one seemingly straightforward enough – until he arrives in The Leap to battle a town conspiring against him.

Paul Daley in conversation

In today’s episode, a conversation with a longtime Readings favourite, Toni Jordan, about her most recent book, Tenderfoot. 

The story is set in Brisbane, 1975: Andie Tanner's world is small but whole. Her mum is complicated, but she adores her dad and the kennel of racing greyhounds that live under their house. Andie is a serious girl with plans: finish school with her friends, then apprentice to her father until she can become a greyhound trainer, with dogs of her very own. 

But real life rarely goes to plan, and the world is bigger and more complicated than Andie could imagine. When she loses everything she cares about – her family, her friends, the dogs – it's up to Andie to reclaim her future. She will need all her wits to survive this new reality of secrets and half-truths, addictions and crime.

Toni Jordan in conversation

In this episode, a recording taken from the launch of Monica Raszewski's Crimson Light Polished Wood. 

Leonora, a British teacher, has relocated to Melbourne and falls in love with Margaret, a fellow female teacher who three years later dies of cancer. While still grieving for Margaret, Leonora meets and befriends Anna, the Polish woman who lives next door. As Leonora becomes increasingly involved with Anna and her family the novel illuminates with subtle ease the influence Leonora has on Anna's daughter, Lydia, introducing her to the wonderful world of literature and art. 

This is a novel about the ways we all long for acceptance and the ways in which those we might feel most in touch with including parents, siblings and mentors can often have different values and views about us. As such it is a beautiful work about art, gender, disappointment, understanding and celebration.

Monica Raszewski in conversation

In this episode, a conversation with Andrew Pippos, the author of Lucky’s, awarded the Readings Prize for Fiction, on his new, forthcoming book, The Transformations. 

In the fading glow of Australia's print journalism era, The National is more than a newspaper: it's an institution, and the only place that George Desoulis has ever felt at home. A world-weary subeditor with a bookish sensibility and a painful past, George is one of nature's loners. But a late-night encounter with an unorthodox and self-assured reporter, Cassandra Gwan, begins to unravel both of their carefully managed worlds. As the decline of the newspaper enters a desperate stage, George and Cassandra struggle to balance their turbulent relationship with their responsibilities to family, and the compromises each has built their life upon. 

With a deft wit and a sharp eye for emotional complexity, Pippos examines the stories we tell ourselves, and the ways people handle grief, guilt and generational change. The Transformations is a novel about endings – of dreams, relationships, institutions – and the chance of new beginnings.

Andrew Pippos in conversation

In this episode, a conversation with Bri Lee, the acclaimed and bestselling author of Eggshell Skull and The Work, and of a new novel, Seed. 

Mitchell is a brilliant biologist, committed to the environment and the growing global antinatalist movement. For one month each year he lives with his colleague Frances in a utopia of radical equality and scientific dedication in Antarctica. They are concluding the Anarctos Project: a seed vault in an isolated, secret location. It is a biodiversity insurance policy against humanity's devastating effects on the rapidly warming planet. But when their helicopter doesn't pick them up, and strange things begin to happen, their faith in science is suddenly not enough. Mitchell has been keeping big secrets - from Frances and from himself. The ice haunts him with memories of a devastating betrayal and questions of legacy and fairness crowd his mind. If they don't get back to McMurdo Station before the last flight home they face a long dark polar winter together. Alone. As the days get shorter, these two people of firm logic and reason begin finding fault lines in their perfect social experiment. 

Thrilling, original and almost unbearably suspenseful, Seed offers an uneasy glimpse into isolation, love and our worst fears.

Bri Lee in conversation

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.

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