International fiction
2023 fantasy, sci-fi and speculative fiction highlights
It has been a bonza year for all things fantasy, sci-fi and speculative fiction! We've rounded up some of our favourite reads that include cozy fantasies, epic space operas, and multiple not-too-distant dystopias.
Immortal Longings by Chloe Gong
Every year, thousands flock to San-Er, the dangerously dense capital twin cities of the kingdom of Talin, where the palace hosts a set of deadly games. Those confident in their ability to jump between bodies can enter a fight to the death…
2023 LGBTQIA+ fiction favourites
It’s been a fantastic year for LGBTQIA+ stories in fiction. Below, you’ll find some of our 2023 fiction favourites that centre and celebrate a multiplicity of LGBTQIA+ experiences within their pages.
Bored Gay Werewolf by Tony Santorella
Brian, an aimless slacker, works doubles at his shift job, forgets to clean his room and lays about with his friends Nik and Darby. He's been struggling to manage his transition to adulthood almost as much as his monthly transitions to a werewolf…
12 literary prize winners to read this summer
2023 has been a wonderful year of prize-winning literature. From across the globe readers have been treated to a myriad of deeply satisfying novels. The 12 winners below were judged for their originality and exemplary writing.
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
Winner of The Booker Prize 2023
On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother-of-four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find the GNSB on her doorstep. Two officers from Ireland's newly formed secret police want to…
Festive fiction
These five festive reads are perfect for anyone who wants to bring a little bit of Christmas to their reading list.
Mistletoe Malice by Kathleen Farrell
The fire is going, sherry poured, presents wrapped, and claws are being sharpened. In a seaside cottage perched on a cliff, one family reunites for Christmas.
While snow falls, a tyrannical widowed matriarch presides over her unruly brood. Her niece tends to her whims, but fantasises about eloping; and as more guests arrive, each…
Our November 2023 bestsellers
Question 7 by Richard Flanagan
The In-Between by Christos Tsiolkas
Good Material by Dolly Alderton
Women & Children by Tony Birch
So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan
Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life by Anna Funder
Lola in the Mirror by Trent Dalton
Bright Shining: How Grace Changes Everything by Julia Baird
Killing for Country: A Family Story by David Marr
All That's Left Unsaid by Tracey Lien
Quarterly Essay 92: The Great Divide: Australia’s Housing Mess and How…
Bookseller spotlight: Joanna Di Mattia’s favourite books of 2023
Joanna Di Mattia is a bookseller at Readings Carlton.
I made an early declaration this year that Jenny Erpenbeck’s Kairos would be the best novel I’d read in 2023, and as the year now comes to a close, that declaration still stands. For me, no other book has touched it – I love its emotional and psychological complexity, and the way it recreates the last days of life in a divided Germany so vividly and sensually. I think about it…
Must-read international debut fiction from 2023
It's been a gargantuan year for debuts, both local and international. Below is a list of some of our favourite international debut fiction, published during 2023, to read this summer. You can explore must-read local debuts here.
Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Welcome to Chain-Gang All-Stars – the highly popular, highly controversial profit-raising program inside America's private prison system. Harkening back to the time of gladiators, but watched by millions of live-stream subscribers, prisoners compete for the ultimate…
Best international fiction of 2023
Every year our staff vote for their favourite books of the past 12 months. Here are the best international fiction books of the year, as voted by Readings' staff, and displayed in alphabetical order by author.
Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Imagine a Squid Game-style gladiator program that combines elements of the ‘reality’ TV show and the ancient ‘sport’, but is run as a fight-to-the-death competition for freedom in the, near future, US prison system – and is…
Paul Lynch wins the Booker Prize 2023
Congratulations to Paul Lynch who has been named the winner of this year's Booker Prize for his fifth novel, Prophet Song. The Booker Prize is a £50,000 literary prize awarded each year for the best original novel, written in the English language, and published in the UK. Paul Lynch is the fifth Irish author to win the prize.
Prophet Song is an exhilarating, propulsive and confrontational portrait of a country – and an ordinary family – on the brink…
The 2023 winners of the National Book Awards
The winners of this year's National Book Awards have been announced! Since 1950, the National Book Awards have been celebrating the best writing in America.
The winner for Fiction is Justin Torres for Blackouts
The winner for Nonfiction is Ned Blackhawk for The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History
The winner for Poetry is Craig Santos Perez for from unincorporated territory [åmot]
The winner for Translated Literature is Stênio Gardel for The Words That Remain …
Debut fiction to read this month
Before we race headlong into November new releases and the end of the year, we're taking the time to spotlight some of the wonderful debut novels that you may have missed over the past couple of months.
Green Dot by Madeleine Gray
Hera Stephen is clawing through her mid-twenties, working as an underpaid comment moderator in an overly air-conditioned newsroom by day and kicking around Sydney with her two best friends by night. Instead of money or stability, she has…
A spotlight on translated fiction this month
This month we're reading fiction translated from Japanese, French, Norwegian, Korean & Italian.
Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa (translated from Japanese by Eric Ozawa)
Hidden in Jimbocho, Tokyo is a booklover's paradise. On a quiet corner in an old wooden building lies a shop filled with hundreds of second-hand books. Twenty-five-year-old Takako has never liked reading, although the Morisaki bookshop has been in her family for three generations. It is the pride and joy of her uncle…
The Goldsmiths Prize shortlist 2023
The shortlist for this year’s Goldsmiths Prize has been announced! This prize was established in 2013 to celebrate the qualities of creative daring and to reward fiction that breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form. You can learn more about the history of the prize here.
The six titles shortlisted for the 2023 Goldsmiths Prize are:
Lori & Joe by Amy Arnold
The Long Form by Kate Briggs
Never Was by Gareth H. Gavin
…
My year of horror (reading)
Readings Carlton bookseller Jason Austin decided to return to a genre he’d enjoyed as a young reader and exclusively read horror books in 2023. Here he shares the results of his experiment.
Like a lot of kids, my love of reading began with comics, but sci-fi and horror were my gateway to reading long-form literature. Horror, in particular, was a genre I was hooked on as a child, and it started with Roald Dahl.
I don’t mean The BFG or…
Recommended short story collections
The last three months has seen an exciting array of short stories and anthologies ranging from some beloved long-time authors to those making their debut. Here is a selection of recent favourites that we hope you'll enjoy.
Normal Rules Don't Apply by Kate Atkinson
One of the world's great storytellers, and bestselling author of Shrines of Gaiety and Life After Life, conjures a captivating new book. In this first full collection since Not the End of the World,…
A spotlight on translated fiction this month
This month we're reading fiction translated from Japanese, Korean, German and Chinese.
Before We Say Goodbye by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (translated from Japanese by Geoffrey Trousselot)
Toshikazu Kawaguchi's poignant Before We Say Goodbye explores the age-old question: what would you do if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?
The regulars at the magical Cafe Funiculi Funicula are well acquainted with its famous legend and extraordinary, secret menu time…
The 2023 Booker Prize shortlist
The 2023 Booker Prize shortlist has been announced!
This year's shortlist features one British, one Canadian, two Irish and two American authors. Two of the shortlisted works are debuts. Although full of hope, humour and humanity, the books address many of 2023’s most pressing concerns: climate change, immigration, financial hardship, the persecution of minorities, political extremism and the erosion of personal freedoms. They feature characters in search of peace and belonging or lamenting lost loves. There are books that are…
Q&A with Lauren Groff
Enjoy this special Q&A with Lauren Groff to celebrate the publication of her latest novel, The Vaster Wilds.
You have described The Vaster Wilds as a retelling of Robinson Crusoe – can you tell us about your relationship with that book? And how and why you decided to write this book in that vein?
Oh, I absolutely adore Robinson Crusoe, not only because it's an adventure story, but also because it's a dazzling view into the mindset of…
Thoughts on translated fiction from a member of our Teen Advisory Board
by Scarlett, Teen Advisory Board memberScarlett from our Teen Advisory Board discusses (and recommends!) fiction in translation.
One of my favourite genres is translated literature! It provides fresh perspectives, from all around the world, on issues individuals and society are facing. This gives readers like me a more holistic view of the world they live in and expands our perspective of humanity.
As a child, I grew up learning from my Mum the struggles she had to endure from escaping an unsafe home country, but…
Q&A with Sebastian Faulks
Enjoy this special Q&A to mark the release of Sebastian Faulks' latest novel, The Seventh Son.
How different would Seth’s life be if he was raised knowing he was the product of an experiment?
I suppose it would have posed very interesting questions of self-awareness. He’d have been asking himself how he was different from everyone else he met. He would have become very analytical, though whether he is temperamentally or genetically well suited for such self-examination is hard…
Debut fiction to read this month
Before we dive headfirst into September new releases, we're taking the time to spotlight some of the wonderful August debut novels that you may have missed!
Firelight: Stories by John Morrissey
An imprisoned man with strange visions writes letters to his sister. A controversial business tycoon leaves his daughter a mysterious inheritance. A child is haunted by a green man with a message about the origins of their planet.
In this striking collection of stories, the award-winning John Morrissey investigates…
A spotlight on translated fiction this month
This month we're reading fiction translated from German, Swedish, Japanese, Korean and Spanish!
Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck (translated from German by Michael Hofmann)
Berlin. 11 July 1986. They meet by chance on a bus. She is a young student, he is older and married. Theirs is an intense and sudden attraction, fuelled by a shared passion for music and art, and heightened by the secrecy they must maintain. But when she strays for a single night he cannot forgive her…
The 2023 Booker Prize longlist
The longlist for the 2023 Booker Prize has been announced! The Booker Prize has brought recognition, reward and readership to outstanding fiction for over 50 years. It is awarded annually to the best novel of the year written in English and published in the UK or Ireland.
Below are the 13 longlisted titles:
A Spell of Good Things by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀
Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry
Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein
If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery
…
A spotlight on translated fiction this month
This month we're reading novels translated from Spanish, Danish and Japanese.
Cousins by Aurora Venturini (translated from Spanish by Kit Maude)
At the age of 85, Aurora Venturini stunned Argentine readers when her darkly funny and formally daring novel, Cousins, won Pagina/12’s New Novel Award. She had already written more than thirty books – but it was only then, in 2007, that she was widely recognized as a radical voice in Spanish-language literature.
Widely regarded as Venturini’s masterpiece, Cousins…
These books have something in common
It's satisying to find the common threads that tie books together, especially if they're not immediately apparent from the titles. This list of books has one thing in common – can you figure it out?
You'll find the answer at the bottom of the list.
Honeybees and Distant Thunder by Riku Onda, Philip Gabriel (trans.)
In a small coastal town just a stone’s throw from Tokyo, a prestigious piano competiton is underway. Over the course of two feverish weeks, three…
Debut fiction to read this July
Talking at Night by Claire Daverley
Will and Rosie meet as teenagers.
They're opposites in every way. She overthinks everything; he is her twin brother's wild and unpredictable friend. But over secret walks home and late-night phone calls, they become closer – destined to be one another's great love story. Until, one day, tragedy strikes, and their future together is shattered. But as the years roll on, Will and Rosie can't help but find their way back to each…
Bestselling books in new, compact formats
These bestselling books are now available in smaller, more portable formats!
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
In this ingenious reimagining of David Copperfield set in modern-day Southern Appalachia, Damon (quickly nicknamed Demon) journeys through his life with only a few things to rely on: his dead father’s good looks, his devilish charm and a knack for survival. Though his challenges are many – foster care, child labour, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses – he never loses sight of his…
Don't miss these June debuts
Before we dive headfirst into next month's releases, we're looking back at just a few of the outstanding debuts that graced our shelves in June.
Couplets by Maggie Millner
Maggie Millner’s seductive debut is a novel-in-verse about a woman in her late twenties who leaves a long-term relationship with a boyfriend for another woman. The affair thrusts her from an outwardly conventional life into queerness, polyamory, kink, and unalloyed, consuming desire. What ensues is an exploration of obsession, gender, identity-making…
The 2023 Yoto Carnegie winners
The winners of the 2023 Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing and Yoto Carnegie Medal for Illustration have been announced!
The Carnegie Medal for Writing is awarded by children’s librarians for an outstanding book written in English for children and young people. The Carnegie Medal for Illustration is awarded by children’s librarians for an outstanding book in terms of illustration for children and young people.
The Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing has been awarded to Manon Steffan Ros for her young…
Barbara Kingsolver wins the 2023 Women's Prize for Fiction
Barbara Kingsolver has won the 2023 Women’s Prize for Fiction for her novel Demon Copperhead. With this win, Kingsolver becomes the first double winner for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in its 28 year history. Her first win was in 2010 for her novel Lacuna.
Demon Copperhead: a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent…
Out of this world LGBTQIA+ fiction
If you're into queer space operas, fantasy epics and the lives of futuristic robots – then do we have the books for you! We've recently been gifted with a treasure trove of LGBTQIA+ sci-fi and fantasy titles that are the perfect place to escape to as the weather turns wintry. Below are four of our recent favourites.
In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune
In a strange little home built into the branches of a grove of trees live…
Sleuths and busybodies in contemporary coming-of-age fiction
Let's hear it for the nosy protagonists. They are united by their underestimated abilities, their unwillingness to accept things at face value, their passion that almost always bubbles over to obsession, and of course their scathing social critiques.
Brutes by Dizz Tate
Hot and humid summer days converge as the girls watch the town's goings on closely. They peer from around corners, behind bushes and high up on stone walls; above it all. These thirteen-year-olds see everything as they skulk…
Barbara Kingsolver and Hernan Diaz win the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Barbara Kingsolver and Hernan Diaz have each won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction! Kingsolver has won for her novel Demon Copperhead, and Diaz for his novel Trust.
The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is awarded For distinguished fiction published during the year by an American author, preferably dealing with American life. The winner receives $15,000. This year is the first time since inception (1948) that the prize has been awarded to fiction books.
Learn more about each winning…
Our 2023 April bestsellers
The Bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
Did I Ever Tell You This? Sam Neill
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au
Quarterly Essay 89: The Wires That Bind by Saul Griffith
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
The Anniversary by Stephanie Bishop
Outlive by Peter Attia…
Fatimah Asghar wins the 2023 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction
Fatimah Asghar has won the first ever Carol Shields Prize for Fiction!
The Carol Shields Prize for Fiction is a major new English-language literary award to celebrate creativity and excellence in fiction by women and non-binary writers in the United States and Canada. Debut author Fatimah Asghar has been announced the winner in its inaugural year for their work, When We Were Sisters. Asghar will receive the prize of $150,000 as well as a writing residency.
The novel traces…
The Women's Prize for Fiction shortlist 2023
The shortlist for the 2023 Women’s Prize for Fiction has been announced! The Women’s Prize for Fiction celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in women’s writing from throughout the world. The winner receives a cheque for £30,000 and a limited edition bronze figurine known as a ‘Bessie’, created and donated by the artist Grizel Niven. Both are anonymously endowed.
Below are the six longlisted books.
Black Butterflies by Priscilla Morris
Sarajevo, spring 1992. Each night, nationalist gangs erect barricades, splitting the…
The 2023 International Booker Prize shortlist
The International Booker Prize has revealed the shortlist of six novels in contention for the 2023 prize, which celebrates the finest works of translated fiction from around the world.
The prize is awarded every year for a single book that is translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland. It aims to encourage more publishing and reading of quality works of imagination from all over the world, and to give greater recognition to the role of translators.The contribution…
Debut fiction to read this month
Thirst for Salt by Madelaine Lucas
She first sees him in the water: a local man almost twenty years her senior. Adrift in the summer after finishing university, a young woman is on holiday with her mother in an isolated Australian coastal town. Finding herself pulled to Jude, the man in the water, she begins losing herself in the simple, seductive rhythms of his everyday life.
As their relationship deepens, life at Sailors Beach offers her the stability she has…
Our March 2023 bestsellers
The Bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams
Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au
Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
Did I Ever Tell You This? Sam Neill
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
Old God's Time by Sebastian Barry
Bush Flowers by Cassandra Hamilton & Michael Pavlou
Infidelity and Other Affairs by Kate Legge
Daisy Jones and The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Which Curtis Sittenfeld book should you read first?
Perhaps you are a person who is thinking: ‘I am interested to read this extremely good author, but also I am time-poor and do not know where to begin’. This guide* is for you…
*This piece was originally published in 2019 and has been updated with contributions from our booksellers to reflect Sittenfeld's latest work (Rodham & Romantic Comedy) and to ensure our advice remains up-to-date!
Prep (2005)
When shy fourteen-year-old Lee Fiora arrives at the exclusive boarding…
Must-read Japanese crime and mystery novels
Translated from Japanese, below is a collection of both acclaimed works of mystery – more specifically, hongaku – as well as other recent, and celebrated, contemporary works of Japanese crime fiction. These translated works are all uniquely compelling and will keep you awake and guessing until their final pages.
Lady Joker (Volume 1) by Kaoru Takamura (translated by Allison Markin Powell and Marie Iida)
Tokyo, 1995. Five men meet at the racetrack every Sunday to bet on horses. They have…
An extract from Curtis Sittenfeld's much anticipated novel, Romantic Comedy
Beloved and bestselling author Curtis Sittenfeld is back! Her latest novel, Romantic Comedy, centres a sketch writer who has all but given up on love – until she falls, hard, but not for the person she expects.
Read an advanced extract from the novel's prologue below.
Prologue
February 2018
You should not, I’ve read many times, reach for your phone first thing in the morning—the news, social media, and emails all disrupt the natural stages of waking and create…
The Dylan Thomas Prize shortlist 2023
The shortlist for this year’s Dylan Thomas Prize has been announced!
The Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize is awarded for the best published literary work in the English language, written by an author aged 39 or under. The prize celebrates the international world of fiction in all its forms including poetry, novels, short stories and drama. This year, Australian writer Robbie Arnott has been shortlisted.
The six shortlisted titles are:
Limberlost by Robbie Arnott
Seven Steeples by Sara Baume
Debut fiction to read this month
Go as a River by Shelley Read
Nestled in the foothills of the Elk mountains and surrounded by sprawling forests, wandering bears and porcupine, the Gunnison river rushes by the tiny town of Iola. For seventeen-year-old Victoria Nash, the day promises to be as ordinary as the porridge and fried eggs she serves her family for breakfast. But just as a single rainstorm can erode the banks and change the course of a river, so can a chance encounter in…
A spotlight on translated fiction
Red Queen by Juan Gómez-Jurado (translated from Spanish by Nick Caistor)
You’ve never met anyone like her … Antonia Scott is special. Very special. She is not a policewoman or a lawyer. She has never wielded a weapon or carried a badge, and yet, she has solved dozens of crimes. But it’s been awhile since Antonia left her attic in Madrid. The things she has lost are much more important to her than the things awaiting her outside.
She also…
The 2023 International Booker Prize longlist
The International Booker Prize has revealed the ‘Booker Dozen’ of 13 novels in contention for the 2023 prize, which celebrates the finest works of translated fiction from around the world.
The prize is awarded every year for a single book that is translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland. It aims to encourage more publishing and reading of quality works of imagination from all over the world, and to give greater recognition to the role of translators.The…
Beginners guide to Taylor Jenkins Reid
Taylor Jenkins Reid has taken the world by storm with her incredible novels that read more like true stories than works of fiction. The way she writes makes you feel as if you're eavesdropping on conversations at an exclusive party, rather than reading it off the page.
So now you're thinking, okay Lucie, this sounds amazing but what TJR book should I pick up first? Well I've written this guide to help you decide, but I promise you won't be…
Dear Reader, with Alison Huber
Engaging in extensive discussions about the weather and changing seasons is part of being a Melbournian, so I am not at all self-conscious to raise this sometimes-prosaic topic, and mention that March signals for me the beginning of our gradual transition into my favourite part of the year, when the nights start to cool, the days shorten a little, and the light changes to warmer hues. It’s also the time for fungi to start growing in earnest in the damp…
The Women's Prize for Fiction longlist 2023
The longlist for the 2023 Women’s Prize for Fiction has been announced! The Women’s Prize for Fiction celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in women’s writing from throughout the world. The winner receives a cheque for £30,000 and a limited edition bronze figurine known as a ‘Bessie’, created and donated by the artist Grizel Niven. Both are anonymously endowed.
Below are the sixteen longlisted books.
Black Butterflies by Priscilla Morris
Children of Paradise by Camilla Grudova
Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh
…
We recommend reading these Irish novels
This collection was inspired by our colleagues who commented that recently many of their favourite reads were courtesy of Irish women. Explore our full collection of Irish authors we love or browse some of the more recent and beloved releases below.
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell
'Set during the Italian Renaissance and based on true events, The Marriage Portrait tells the story of Lucrezia De Medici's doomed marriage to Alfonso d'Este, the Duke of Ferrara. Given in marriage to…
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