The Staff Shelf: Readings

When we walk into a bookstore, the first place we go is the staff recommendation shelves—it’s how you get a quick sense of the personality of the store. The very best bookstores are merely a reflection of the eclectic, deeply felt opinions of the book-lovers who work there. As part of our Interview with a Bookstore, we asked the staff at Readings what they recommend.

SLIDESHOW: Readings Staff Shelf

: JEMIMA BUCKNELL (ONLINE FULFILLMENT MANAGER) RECOMMENDS: Charlotte Wood’s The Natural Way of Things is a haunting vision of a dystopian present and an allegory of patriarchal complexities. Her rhythmic prose ties you to each page, mixing images of brutality, nurture, survival, and sex to paint a sincere portrait of the modern feminine condition.

: ELKE POWER (EDITOR OF READINGS MONTHLY) RECOMMENDS: Stephanie Bishop has a rare gift for capturing the intangible – nostalgia, homesickness, ambivalence about identity and family, and more – and casting it anew. The Other Side of the World is an exciting contribution to the Australian literary canon and a deserving winner of The Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction 2015.

: LIAN HINGEE (DIGITAL MARKETING MANAGER) RECOMMENDS: The Family Law is snort-laughingly funny. Law’s acerbic wit coupled with his unconventional family remind me a little of a David Sedaris’ Dress Your Family In Corduroy and Denim but the distinctly Australian voice (coupled with my own experience of growing up in an Asian family) lends the book a delicious familiarity.

: MARK RUBBO (MANAGING DIRECTOR) RECOMMENDS: I love this book; I love the writing, I love the language, I love the breadth and the insights. It took Watson seven years to write this book and it was worth the wait. What does the bush and what we’ve done to it mean to us? Watson mines our history to explain our country in a most marvellous way.

: ROBBIE EGAN (CARLTON SHOP MANAGER) RECOMMENDS: Ghost River is a beautiful novel, part coming-of-age story, part history of inner Melbourne. Birch doesn’t lean on the location for authenticity, rather he builds it through character. The dialogue had me laughing out loud, and working out the different sites on the river was a sneaky pleasure.

: MARK RUBBO (MANAGING DIRECTOR) RECOMMENDS: I’d been a bookseller for a year when this gutsy novel burst on the scene in 1977. Monkey Grip was brave and brazen with beautiful writing, and it had everybody talking. Australia wasn’t boring anymore. And now, almost 40 years later, it continues to resonate with new readers.

: ISOBEL MOORE (ST. KILDA CHILDREN’S SPECIALIST) RECOMMENDS: Illuminae is unlike anything I have ever read previously and I loved every moment of it. This is a truly original and inspiring read that shows great empathy to its characters, and introduced me to my new favourite character–the almost brutally determined Kady.

: NEIKA LEHMAN (ST. KILDA BOOKSELLER) RECOMMENDS: Ellen van Neerven’s Heat and Light is speculative, ancient, urgent, and sometimes even erotic. This brilliant young writer is making serious waves, and her Australia is both sensuous and uncompromising, searching and yet fully grounded.

: JAN LOCKWOOD (HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGER) RECOMMENDS: I recommend The Tall Man to friends all the time because it’s a book that has always stayed with me. Chloe Hooper’s skilful storytelling meant I was utterly gripped from beginning to end. The events recounted are shocking and deeply sad, yet this book is remarkable for its intelligent and clear-eyed portrayal.

: ANGELA CROCOMBE (CHILDREN’S BOOK BUYER) RECOMMENDS: We chose graphic novel Rivertime as the winner of the Readings Children’s Book Prize in 2015 for many reasons: it is unique, we love its artistry and it is a stunning debut that heralds the arrival of an exciting new Australian author–illustrator.