The Readings Podcast Readings Books

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.

A new instalment of the Readings Kids Podcast.

This episode features some of the members of the Readings Teen Advisory Board engaging in conversation with Tobias Madden, author of the books Anything But Fine and Take a Bow, Noah Mitchell. Madden’s third YA novel, Wrong Answers Only, was recently published in Australia.

In this episode, a conversation with Victoria Vanstone, author of the new memoir, A Thousand Wasted Sundays. The book follows her journey from casual teen drinking to black-outs, boozed-up play dates to learning to live without her reliable social crutch.

But it’s not a tale of misery and trauma, it’s the relatable story of a very normal woman with a very ordinary, socially acceptable drinking habit – and how therapy, and the support of her husband and friends eventually lead her to lasting sobriety and a new perspective on life.

In this episode, a conversation with author Sandra Goldbloom Zurbo, recorded live at the launch of her memoir, My Father’s Shadow.

Zurbo grew up in thrall to her father, a prominent antiwar activist, brilliant political organiser and covert member of the Communist Party. She adopted his beliefs from an early age, becoming a supporter of the Soviet Union and a peace campaigner. She travelled with him, meeting figures such as Indonesian president Sukarno, and greeted Paul Robeson and North Korean delegates with him at home. But her father could be withholding and difficult. He had a sharp backhand and was not always a faithful husband. 

When Sandra entered adulthood and began to navigate a patriarchal world of work and relationships, she came to question aspects of her father’s worldview. As the communist ideals of the Left were tested and faltered over the Soviet Union, the mood of the times gradually shifted to embrace the counterculture. Sandra, living and working amid the swirl of Melbourne’s arts and political scenes, absorbed ideas about women, family and Jewish culture that often led to tense conversations with her father.

My Father’s Shadow is a portrait of life on the Left during a time of great social change. Lyrical, sharply observed and affecting, it is a candid exploration of the fraught dynamics between father and daughter – and, ultimately, the love that underlies them.

An instalment of The Comics Question, a series where Bernard Caleo and I discuss comics, graphic novels, and all manner of illustrated books, zines, and other associated productions.

In this episode, Bernard Caleo was joined by Readings bookseller Nick Curnow to give a round-up of some of the most intriguing, beautiful, and thought-provoking comics and graphic novels from 2023. This is part two of two, so do check out the first instalment of this particular conversation.

In this episode, a conversation with journalist and author Marina Kamenev, author of Kin: Family in the 21st Century.

While the nuclear family still exists, many more types of kinship surround us. Kin is an investigation into what influences us to have children and the new ways that have made parenthood possible. It delves into the experiences of couples without children, single parents by choice and rainbow families, and investigates the impacts of adoption, sperm donation, IVF and surrogacy, and the potential for a future of designer babies. Assisted reproductive technology has developed quickly, and the ways in which we think and speak about its implications — both legally and ethically — need to catch up.

This book is an incisive and powerful look at how families are created today, and how they might be created in the future.