The Readings Podcast

Laura McPhee-Browne in conversation

In this episode, a conversation with writer, social worker and counsellor Laura McPhee-Browne, author of the novel Worry Doll, a thrilling exploration of love and desire – obsessive, all-consuming, and impossible to look away from. On an ordinary day, two women meet on a train. Heloise – the older woman – lives with her boyfriend in Melbourne. Lacey – the other woman – is from Aotearoa and studies the clouds. What follows is anything but ordinary, a passionate affair that will consume them both in mismatched and maddening ways. Propulsive and lyrical, Worry Doll examines desire, memory, and the delusion of love. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781761381850/worry-doll--laura-mcphee-browne--2026--9781761381850

Madeleine Gray in conversation

In this episode, a conversation with Madeleine Gray, author of Chosen Family – a queer, epic literary novel for all readers by the award-winning author of the internationally acclaimed bestseller Green Dot. Books about friendship are not often described as love stories, but this is one. Nell Argall and Eve Bowman are both brilliant, odd and friendless. Traumatised in their first year of high school, their lives are changed forever when they meet. Set in Sydney over eighteen years, Chosen Family follows Nell and Eve as they grow into themselves, as they both love and destroy each other. Can the wounds of adolescent betrayal ever really heal? Can we ever really understand what is going on in someone else’s head? Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781761635724/chosen-family--madeleine-gray--2025--9781761635724

Tony Albert in conversation

In today's episode, a recording taken from the Melbourne launch of Tony Albert’s incredible new art book, Not A Souvenir, a landmark monograph that celebrates an artist, curator and cultural leader, whose work reshapes how we see Aboriginal identity, urging a more honest and hopeful vision of Australia's past and future. Tony Albert's art reclaims and reframes the imagery of Aboriginal Australia with wit, beauty and force. Across painting, photography, sculpture and installation, his practice explores Aboriginal culture, identity and history through a deeply personal lens. Drawing on individual and collective pasts, Albert transforms the visual language of colonisation – turning objects of prejudice into symbols of resistance, resilience and pride. Not a Souvenir is the most comprehensive publication on the artist to date, tracing his journey as one of Australia's most incisive contemporary voices. Across themes of past, present and future, the book unpacks the many critical questions raised in Albert's work: how do we remember, give justice to and rewrite complex and traumatic histories? Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781760764555/tony-albert--tony-albert--2026--9781760764555

Quinn Slobodian & Ben Tarnoff in conversation

In this episode, we have a conversation with Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff, co-authors of Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed. Who on earth is Elon Musk and what is he doing? Is he a hero, a villain, or does he swing constantly between those two poles? According to the constant media gush driven by his every act and pronouncement, Musk is best understood in personal terms. This book argues differently. Rather than seeing Musk as an individual, it sees him as an avatar of something called Muskism: a playbook for our new postliberal age. It’s not that Musk himself holds a coherent set of beliefs; you could say his life is one long improvisation. And he’s certainly never used the word Muskism – just as, a century ago, Henry Ford never used Fordism to define his own postliberal modernity. In exploring the forces that have shaped Musk, from South Africa to Silicon Valley, Space X to DOGE, Slobodian and Tarnoff outline the motifs and practices that have come to dominate our own crisis-ridden world. Muskism, they show, speaks the language of crisis and emergency to invoke a less human future: where humans are purged from the productive process and, through social media and video games, merged with the machine. This is a worldview in which the technocrat is king; which piggybacks on the state to achieve supremacy; and in which only a select few deserve salvation. If you enter, this book warns you, you will grind and you will live in the shadow of one man – but the rewards could be priceless and the alternative might be extinction. Enjoyed what you heard? Click here to purchase the book: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9780241805114/muskism--quinn-slobodian-ben-tarnoff--2026--9780241805114

Australian fiction favourites from our booksellers

In this week's episode, we're doing something a little different. As Readings celebrates Australian Fiction throughout June, we're turning to the people who spend every day talking about books: our booksellers. Australian writers have shaped our literary culture and found readers around the world, yet they can still be overlooked in international conversations about great literature. Rather than trying to define a canon, we've asked Readings staff across our Melbourne shops to share the Australian novels they return to, recommend and love. From literary classics to contemporary favourites, these are passionate, personal recommendations celebrating the extraordinary breadth of Australian storytelling.