OUR BOOK CLUBS
Hello book lovers! Welcome to your local book club.
Matilda Bookshop now hosts three book clubs for adult readers.
(We also have three book clubs for kids - find out more here.)
All book clubbers receive a 20% discount on the book of the month.
To be involved, please join one of the book clubs mailing lists and you’ll be emailed when our upcoming dates are announced. Hope to see you soon!
WHEN: Tuesday evening, monthly at 6pm or 730pm
VENUE: Stirling Hotel Library Room
COST: $12
CONVENOR: Molly
OUR NEXT BOOK CLUB DATE: Tuesday June 23rd 2026 6pm OR 730pm.
SOLD OUT: please contact us to join the waitlist
Sign up below to join our book club mailing list.
Our Matilda Bookshop Book Club has been running for eleven years and is a lively, informal and informative meeting where we chat over the best in Australian fiction, new-release fiction, classics and international fiction. The sessions are convened by Molly (who is an author and manager of the bookshop), who has experience teaching literature and creative writing at a tertiary level. But most importantly, the evenings are fun and engaging.
If you are interested in receiving regular information about the book club, please sign up to the newsletter below.
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In May, at Matilda Bookshop Book Club, we discussed the compelling and electric, Sororicidal, by Edwina Preston. Beginning in Edwardian Adelaide and moving through to the 1970s, two well-to-do-sisters provoke, inspire, and devour each other’s sense of self, their desires, and their dreams. Margot is a sensitive observer who falls in love passionately, but lives in the shadow of her brilliant, artistic, elder sister, Margot. The power balance between the two constantly shifts, unsettling the reader, and offering surprising revelations about truth and memory. Our book club was interested in tracking the places in the novel where the allegiance between reader and character shifts, and also in considering the costs both women endure as a result of their temperaments. We loved the exploration of artmaking--it's perils and rewards--on women's lives. We also found the setting of Adelaide intriguing; for some readers, Preston captured its light and weather resonantly, while for others, the setting remained elusive. The discussion also highlighted other films and books of similar mood and atmosphere. A fascinating chat. MOLLY
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2026
On Not Climbing Mountains by Claire Thomas
2025
The Underworld by Sofie Laguna
Seascraper by Benjamin Wood
Desolation by Hossein Asgari
Cure by Katherine Brabon
Honour’s Mimic by Charmian Clift
We Do Not Part by Han Kang
Flesh by David Szalay
Elegy, Southwest Madeleine Watts
The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich
Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser
2024
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout
Scaffolding by Lauren Elkin
Clear by Carys Davies
The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry
Take What You Need by Idra Novey
Until August Gabriel García Márquez
We All Lived in Bondi Then by Georgia Blain
The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt
Days of Innocence and Wonder by Lucy Treloar
2023
Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood
The Wren, The Wren by Anne Enright
Chai Time at the Cinnamon Gardens by Shankari Chandran
In Ascension by Martin MacInnes
Small Things Like These & Foster by Claire Keegan
August Blue by Deborah Levy
The Bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams
Out of Africa by Karen Blixen
Euphoria by Elin Cullhed
The Sun Walks Down by Fiona McFarlane
2022
Limberlost by Robbie Arnott
This Devastating Fever by Sophie Cunningham
Faithless by Alice Nelson
Horse by Geraldine Brooks
Bedtime Story by Chloe Hooper
Elizabeth Finch by Julian Barnes
Loveland by Robert Lukins
The Colony by Audrey Magee
Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au
The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
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2021
Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard
Real Estate by Deborah Levy
Still Life by Sarah Winman
Stranger Care by Sarah Sentilles
From Where I Fell by Susan Johnson
The Performance by Claire Thomas
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stewart
Song of the Crocodile by Nardi Simpson
2020
Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Greenwood by Michael Christie
The Rain Heron by Robbie Arnott
The Things She Owned by Katherine Tamiko Arguile
A Thousand Moons by Sebastian Barry
The Scent of Eucalyptus by Barbara Hanrahan
Betty by Tiffany McDaniel
The Labyrinth by Amanda Lohrey
In Search of the Woman Who Sailed the World by Danielle Clode
2019
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Walking on the Ceiling by Aysegul Savas
Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi
The White Girl by Tony Birch
Lanny by Max Porter
The Erratics by Vicki Laveau-Harvie
Islands by Peggy Frew
Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss
Heart of the Grass Tree by Molly Murn
2018The Children’s House by Alice Nelson
Normal People by Sally Rooney
Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton
Flames by Robbie Arnott
Monkey Grip by Helen Garner
Warlight by Michael Ondaatje
In the Garden of the Fugitives by Ceridwen Dovey
The Only Story by Julian Barnes
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
The Choke by Sofie Laguna
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2017
The Passage of Love by Alex Miller
Days Without End by Sebastian Barry
Tin Man by Sarah Winman
The Last Garden by Eva Hornung
The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
House of Names by Colm Tóibín
Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose
Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay
Barking Dogs by Rebekah Clarkson
My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
2016
The Good People by Hannah Kent
Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
LaRose by Louise Erdrich
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes
Between a Wolf and a Dog by Georgia Blain
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
Salt Creek by Lucy Treloar
2015The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan
Nora Webster by Colm Toibin
The Golden Age by Joan London
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick de Witt
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood
Sweet Caress by William Boyd
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WHEN: Wednesday evening, monthly, either 6.00pm OR 7.10pm
VENUE: Matilda Bookshop
COST: $12 (includes a glass of red or white wine or sparkling water on arrival)
CONVENOR: Rose
OUR NEXT BOOK CLUB DATE: Wednesday June 10 at 6pm OR 710pm.
***Sold out - email us to join the waitlist at books@matildabookshop.com.au***
Sign up below to join our book club mailing list
The sessions are convened by Rose, an avid reader, published author and bookseller at Matilda Bookshop.
If you are interested in receiving book club updates, please sign up to the newsletter below.
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A common refrain at Red Door book club April was “I don’t normally read short stories, but these were so good.” We were, of course, discussing Lauren Groff’s masterful Brawler, a short story collection that will no doubt make it onto many best-of-the-year lists. The nine stories range from the 1950s to the present day, opening with the devastating “The Wind” about a mother and three children fleeing a domestic abuser; each story drops us into a crucial moment, a turning point in the characters’ lives, and instantly immerses us in a beautifully written gut-punch.
We began by discussing a line taken from the final story, “Annunciation”: “In every human there is both an animal and a god wrestling unto death.” We could see this idea in every story, in every morally grey decision the characters make, and especially in the novelette “What’s the Time Mr Wolf?” where the moral arc of the protagonist appears to momentarily bend towards redemption, and then completes a full circle back to the bottom of the barrel. Personal shadows and intergenerational trauma are certainly themes, but much of our admiration was reserved for the way Groff can illuminate those moments when a character suddenly becomes aware of the difference between how they perceive themselves and how others view them. ROSE
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2026
Brawler by Lauren Groff
Discipline by Randa Abdel-Fattah
Heart the Lover by Lily King
2025
The Mobius Book by Catherine Lacey
Audition by Katie Kitamura
Ghost Cities by Siang Lu
Happiness and Love by Zoe Dubno
You Dreamed of Empires by Alvaro Enrigue
The Coin by Yasmin Zaher
The Antidote by Karen Russell
The Leopard by Guiseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa
The Most by Jessica Anthony
It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over by Anna de Marcken
2024
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
All Fours by Miranda July
Breakdownby Cathy Sweeney
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
Vladivostok Circus by Elisa Shua Dusapin
The Variations by Patrick Langley
Orbital by Samantha Harvey
Held by Anne Michaels
2023
The Premonition by Banana Yoshimoto
North Woods by Daniel Mason
Strangers at the Portby Lauren Aimee Curtis
Cousins by Aurora Venturini
Ghost Music by An Yu
Shy by Max Porter
When I Sing, Mountains Dance by Irene Solà
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
A Sunday in Ville d’Avray by Dominique Barberis
Delphi by Clare Pollard
2022
Limberlost by Robbie Arnott
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell
The Lovers by Paolo Cognetti
Pure Colour by Sheila Heti
WHEN: Thursday evening, monthly, either 6.00pm OR 7.15pm
VENUE: Matilda Bookshop
COST: $12 (includes a glass of red or white wine or sparkling water provided)
CONVENORS: Heather & Nadia
OUR NEXT BOOK CLUB DATE: Thursday July 2nd, 2026 at 6pm OR 7.15pm.
Matilda, Translated is our newest club! The sessions are convened by Heather and Nadia, both booksellers at Matilda Bookshop.
If you are interested in receiving book club updates, please sign up to the newsletter below.
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For June’s Matilda, Translated, we travelled to Japan with Yoko Ogawa’s The Housekeeper and the Professor. It centres the titular characters, as well as the Housekeeper’s son, Root – named by the professor for the shape of his head. It explores their relationship, memory, and mathematics, in a low stakes, cosy style of storytelling.
Despite this appearing on the surface to not provoke much discussion, both groups had rich conversations surrounding the novel's many themes. We discussed whether or not we liked reading about mathematics, which led to an unpacking of our relationship with the discipline; some enjoyed the accessibility of it, others found it to be boring. Mathematics then developed into a broader discussion of philosophy, and how mathematics, in its purest form, informs our way of seeing the world.
We talked about the particulars of the professor’s memory, as he is constrained by an 80-minute short term memory. Some did not dwell on this plot device much, while others could not see past the unlikeliness of his condition; his memory significantly influenced the way he maintained relationships–and the relationships were the entire emotional core of the novel.
We also discussed the broader social context in which the novel was published. Its publication follows the emergence of Japan’s lost generation, which saw young graduates entering the job market during an economic downturn, and low spirits due to significant natural and human-caused disasters. Subsequently, readers prioritise comfort and escape in their reading as a response, which prompted an unpacking of the conditions that have led to a resurgence of the genre. See: cat in bookshop novels.
It was, as expected, a cosy, heartwarming, largely uneventful–for better or worse–novel that, for some, was the much needed palette cleanser this time of the year.
NADIA
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2026
The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yōko Ogawa, trans. by Stephen Snyder
Small Comfort by Ia Genberg, trans. Kira Josefsson (Swedish)
The Wax Child by Olga Ravn, trans. Martin Aitken (Danish)
Monique Escapes by Edouard Louis, trans. John Lambert (French)
Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali, trans. Maureen Freely and Alexander Dawe (Turkish)
2025
Clean by Alia Trabucco Zerán, trans. Sophie Hughes (Chilean)
The Midnight Timetable by Bora Chung, trans. Anton Hur (Korean)
The Directorby Daniel Kehlmann, trans. Ross Benjamin (German)
On the Calculation of Volume by Solvej Balle, trans. Barbara J. Haveland (Danish)