Episodes
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In this episode: Fish. What is the best type of fish to use for a curry or stir-fry or to cook on the barbecue? What should we look for when buying fresh fillets at the supermarket or fishmonger? What are the foolproof techniques for shucking oysters and peeling prawns? Anthony Yotis and Laura di Florio Yotis know good seafood, and they know how to make it more accessible for home cooks.
Anthony is the son of fishmonger Konstantinos Yotis, who ran a legendary seafood stall at Footscray's wholesale market for more than 40 years. Together with his wife Laura, Anthony has brought those years of expertise to their shop, and now to their debut cookbook. The Fishmonger's Son is an invaluable collection of information, advice and recipes based on the most popular fish and shellfish to cook at home. It includes general cooking, storage and preparation tips, plus 70 delicious family recipes, from burgers, bao and tacos to pies, pasta and more. This is the ultimate home cook's guide to buying, preparing and cooking the incredible seafood we have available in Australia. -
In this episode, a conversation with Ailsa Piper, author of the memoir For Life.
When her husband doesn't answer his phone, Ailsa Piper knows something is wrong. She calls their neighbour, and minutes later, he rings back. 'Oh, Ailsa. I'm so sorry,' he says. Five words to change a life.
Wanting to flee her shattered world in Melbourne, Ailsa migrates north to Sydney. She makes a nest. She learns to swim. She walks the harbour cliffs to the lighthouse, meeting the locals: winter swimmers and shoreline philosophers. But we never leave our past behind. Ailsa is drawn back south, and even further back, to the west's aqua waters … -
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This is a very special instalment of the podcast, as we have not one, not two nor three, but four interviews with four award winners – the 2024 winners of the four categories of The Reading Prize.
First presented in 2014, The Readings Prize supports new and outstanding Australian voices across three separate categories of fiction: Children’s, Young Adult and New Australian Fiction. The Readings Prize is unique in the Australian literary landscape as it’s the only prize currently run by an independent bookshop and supporting emerging Australian voices. Winners of each category are awarded $5000 and the winner of the Gab Williams Prize, which is judged by the Readings Teen Advisory Board, wins $1000. To celebrate The Readings Prize in 2024 we have brought together short interviews with each of the winners and the respective Chair of Judges for your listening pleasure. -
In this episode, we have a recording taken from the launch of Follow Your Gut, with co-creators Briony Barr & Gregory Crocetti, writers Lisa Stinson & Ailsa Wild and illustrator Ben Hutchings.
In this graphic novel, one meets the ecosystem inside them ... A timid Bifidobacterium named Biffy is forced to leave their family and become part of a new community, in the gut of a newborn human baby. Follow Your Gut is a comic that ate a biology textbook. It's an epic adventure set over the first three years of a new life, exploring one of the most important relationships you will ever have - the one with your gut microbiome. -
A new 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 spoke with Li Chen, author and illustrator of the graphic novel Detective Beans and the Case of the Missing Hat. -
In this episode, a recording taken from the launch of Emma Hakansson’s Sub-Human.
The book delves into what it means to be an animal, how our view of other animals impacts our view of other people, oppressions, and the planet, how we got here, as well as how we can move forward together.
The event was opened with a launching speech by Georgie Purcell MP of the Animal Justice Party, followed by a reading from Emma Hakansson, and audience questions. -
In this episode, Andy McCarthy, author of Here Comes the Sun, in conversation.
Misunderstood, tormented and bullied for years, Andy McCarthy was unable to find his pack. When he dropped out in Year 10, his prospects weren't good. He had no idea then that his personal drive and dogged determination would lead to incredible success. At 19, Andy connected his first solar panel and suddenly found himself powered by a purpose: to accelerate the world's transition to renewable energy. Where best to make that happen? Coal country, and a place that has provided Victoria with most of its energy for a century, the Latrobe Valley.
From tiny beginnings in his home garage, Andy overcame a tide of ridicule, setbacks and opposition to build one of Australia's largest employers in the renewable energy sector: Gippsland Solar. -
In this episode, Jordan Prosser, author of Big Time, in conversation.
The book is set in a not-too distant future Australia, where the eastern states have become the world's newest autocracy – a place where pop music is propaganda, science is the enemy, nationalism trumps all, and moral indecency is punishable by indefinite detention. Big Time is an anti-fascist ode to the power of pop music and a satire about art in the face of entropy, all wrapped up in an unforgettable road trip.
Jordan Prosser was joined in conversation by Jacinta Parsons, broadcaster and author of Unseen and A Question of Age. To introduce, here's the publisher of Big Time, Aviva Tuffield of University of Queensland Press. -
In this episode, returning guest, Sarah Street, author of A Curse of Salt, in conversation to discuss their new book, A Sea of Wolves.
The book is billed as a sapphic romantasy inspired by Little Red Riding Hood. It features an enemies-to-lovers fairytale twist set upon the stormy seas. It’s perfect for fans of Lies We Sing to the Sea and Marissa Meyer.
Sarah Street is interviewed by Lucie Dess, the Readings Marketing and Events Coordinator. -
In this episode, a conversation with Paul Ham, author of The Soul: A History of the Human Mind.
Almost everyone thinks they have a soul, but nobody knows quite what it is. For thousands of years the soul was an 'organ', an entity, something that was part of all of us, that survived the death of the body and ventured to the underworld, or to heaven or hell. The soul could be saved, condemned, tortured, bought. And then, mysteriously, the 'soul' disappeared. The Enlightenment called it the 'mind'. And today, neuroscientists demonstrate that the mind is the creation of the brain. The 'religious soul' lives on, in the minds of the faithful, while the secular 'soul' means whatever you want it to mean.
In The Soul: A History of the Human Mind critically acclaimed historian Paul Ham embarks on a journey that has never been attempted: to restore the idea of the soul to the human story and to show how belief in, and beliefs arising from, the soul/mind have animated and driven the history of humankind. The Soul is much more than a mesmerising narrative and uniquely accessible way of explaining our story. It transforms our understanding of how history works. It persuasively demonstrates that the beliefs of the soul/mind are the engines of human history.
Paul Ham was interviewed by Mark Rubbo, chairman of Readings. I hope you enjoy their conversation. -
In this episode, a conversation with Khin Myint, author of a new memoir, Fragile Creatures.
Khin's sister Theda has a strange illness and a euthanasia drug locked in a box under her bed. Her doctor thinks her problem is purely physical, and so does she, but Khin is not so sure. He knows what they both went through growing up in Perth - it wasn't welcoming back then for a Burmese-Australian family. With Theda's condition getting worse, Khin heads off to the United States. He needs to sort things out with his ex-partner. Once there, events take a very odd turn, and he finds himself in court.
This is a family story told with humour, wonderment and complete honesty. It's about care, truth and the hardest choices - and what happens when realities clash. How do we balance responsibility for others with what we owe ourselves? -
In this episode, recorded live at Readings Carlton, a talk and a Q&A session with public intellectual and widely published author Clive Hamilton.
Hamilton’s most recent book is Living Hot, a collaborative effort written with George Wilkenfeld. The book tells the blunt truth about our current climate change predicament: it’s time to get cracking on making Australia resilient to intensifying climate extremes.
If we prepare well, we can give ourselves a fighting chance to preserve some of the best of what we have, build stronger and fairer communities, find a path through the escalating pressures of a warming world – and even find new ways to flourish. -
In this episode, a conversation with Emma Kowal, anthropologist and physician and author of the book Haunting Biology: Science and Indigeneity in Australia.
The book recounts the troubled history of Western biological studies and Indigenous Australians. The stories Kowal tells feature a variety of ghostly presences: a dead anatomist, a fetishised piece of hair hidden away in a war trunk, and an elusive white Indigenous person.
By linking this history to the contemporary moment, Kowal outlines the fraught complexities, perils and potentials of studying Indigenous biological difference in the twenty-first century. -
In this episode, something a little different, and a little bit special.
Recorded live at the Athenaeum Library in Melbourne, author and literary columnist Jane Sullivan interviewed Mark Rubbo, legendary bookseller, past president of the Australian Booksellers Association, and founding chair of the Melbourne Writers Festival. Of course, Mark Rubbo is also chairman of Readings, formerly Managing Director. -
In this episode, a conversation with Francesca de Tores, author of Saltblood.
The book is a work of historical fiction; it is a wild adventure, a treasure trove, and it weaves an intoxicating tale of gender and survival, passion and loss, journeys and transformation, through the story of Mary Read, a truly remarkable historical figure. -
A new instalment of the Readings Kids Podcast.
In this episode, Readings Prize and Readings Foundation coordinator Angela Crocombe – who is also senior buyer for Readings Kids – was joined by members of the Teen Advisory Board for a discussion with author Lili Wilkinson.
Wilkinson is the award-winning author of nineteen books for young people, including The Erasure Initiative and A Hunger of Thorns. She has a PhD from the University of Melbourne, and is a passionate advocate for YA and the young people who read it, establishing the Inky Awards at the Centre for Youth Literature, State Library of Victoria. Her latest book is Deep is the Fen. -
In today’s episode, a conversation with Rebecca Strating and Joanne Wallis, authors of Girt By Sea: Re-Imagining Australia’s Security.
Australia has drawn closer to many of its Asia-Pacific neighbours in recent years, but 'when push comes to shove, it continues to look well beyond the oceans and regions that surround it to the distant horizons of Europe and North America for its ultimate security guarantee'.
In Girt by Sea, international-relations experts Strating and Wallis instead turn their gazes to Australia's near region, focusing on the six maritime domains central to its national interests: the north seas. -
In this episode, a recording taken from the launch of Judith Bishop’s Circadia.
These fiercely empathetic poems range deep into the woods of present, past and future time. With visionary imagination and rapt musicality, this concluding volume in Bishop's award-winning trilogy on time sings in the mind long after reading. -
In this episode, a conversation with Stuart Kells, author of the new book, Alice(TM).
This book is the extraordinary story of Alice Corporation, a company created to reimagine financial markets, that brings together an unlikely cast of characters: renowned author Kate Jennings, international banking insider Ian Shepherd, Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling, German-born World War II historian Sigrid MacRae, J.P. Morgan deputy chair Roberto Mendoza - and his dog, Stanley. -
In this episode, a conversation with Anna Downes, author of the crime novels The Safe Place, The Shadow House, and now, Red River Road.
In this new book, set on the Coral Coast of Western Australia, solo traveller Katy is on a mission to find her free-spirited sister, Phoebe, who disappeared along the same route a year ago. But as she drives her campervan further into the wild north, Katy realises she's not as alone as she'd first believed. Soon she is pulled into a complicated web of secrets, lies, myths and stories that force her to question everything she thought she knew about her sister.
Downes was joined in conversation by Kate Mildenhall, author of the acclaimed novels Skylarking, The Mother Fault, and The Hummingbird Effect. - Show more
