I only met Matt Richell once, but it’s an encounter that I reflect on regularly. Hachette held an author meet and greet night at their offices during the recent Sydney Writer’s Festival. As I waited to jump into a conversation, I received a tap on the shoulder. It was Matt. He introduced himself (Matt from Hachette, no titles) and asked me how everything was at Booktopia, and more i... Read more

You wake up after a long night of reading… …and try to sneak some pages in before you leave for work… …and on the bus. You start work full of vigour… …until the 5 minute mark. And then it’s lunchtime… …but pretty soon it’s time to go back to work… …where you daydream about the next chapter… …and then actually dr... Read more

As a young nineteen year old, a career in the New South Wales Police Force seemed perfect for me. It was the combination of adventure and being able to help the community that appealed. I had a very different policing career from the norm. I worked in some of the most exciting and challenging areas in the police force — undercover work, homicide investigation and hostage negotiation. Unfortunat... Read more

Evie Wyld has won the 2014 Miles Franklin Award for her sophomore novel All The Birds, Singing. For a full look at the nominees click here. “All the Birds, Singing draws the reader into its rhythm and mystery, through wonderfully and beautifully crafted prose, whose deceptive sparseness combines powerfully with an ingenious structure to create a compelling narrative of alienation, decline and f... Read more

Grab a copy of Burial Rites here Burial Rites by Hannah Kent In northern Iceland, 1829, Agnes Magnusdottir is condemned to death for her part in the brutal murder of two men. Agnes is sent to wait out the time leading to her execution on the farm of District Officer Jon Jonsson, his wife and their two daughters. Horrified to have a convicted murderess in their midst, the family avoids speaking ... Read more

Grab a copy of Lost & Found here Lost & Found by Brooke Davis A heart-warming debut about finding out what love and life is all about. Millie Bird (aka Captain Funeral), seven-years old and ever hopeful, always wears red gumboots to match her red, curly hair. Her struggling mother leaves Millie in a local department store and never returns. Agatha Pantha, eighty-two, has not left her ho... Read more

We really shouldn’t be surprised should we? After the success of once-upon-a-time Twilight fan fiction 50 Shades of Grey, a One Direction fan has been given a six-figure advance to rework her erotic FanFic. For those out of the loop, Fan Fiction is a term for stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator. Anna Todd has been ... Read more

Grab a copy of Foreign Soil here Foreign Soil by Maxine Beneba Clarke Winner of the Victorian Premier’s Unpublished Manuscript Award 2013. In this collection of award-winning stories, Melbourne writer Maxine Beneba Clarke has given a voice to the disenfranchised, the lost, the downtrodden and the mistreated. It will challenge you, it will have you by the heartstrings. This is contemporary... Read more

The opportunity to critique a childhood idol is an uncomfortable proposition. When I was a child my mother would thrust a library book in my hands after we’d run down the bus I was always late for. One of these books was Misery Guts, by Morris Gleitzman, a book that fostered my love of reading. I remain forever indebted to him. Gleitzman’s new novel, Loyal Creatures, continues his l... Read more

Cookbooks have been around for centuries, so finding an original, accessible way to present new recipes is pretty darn tough. But Rosie Ramsden has invented a whole new way of planning meals: it’s called The Recipe Wheel. She takes one simple, core recipe – like risotto – that sits at the centre of its own recipe wheel. From there lead spokes or threads to new, more developed recipes – se... Read more