FEBRUARY 2026 EDITION #9

In this edition

+ From the Desk

+ What We're Reading

+ A Book We Loved

+ Book Club News

+ Highlight on an Author

+ Further Reading and ephemera

From the Desk— February in Review

Dear Reader,

We are thrilled to return to our regular Matilda Bookshop Review, where we share with you our current reads, author interviews, book club wrap ups, and other literary ephemera such as reviews, award news, and books we love.

Welcome to Matilda Bookshop Review #9, your first edition for 2026.

Matilda Bookshop hopes you've had an astounding summer of reading, and like us, can't wait for upcoming new books from Elizabeth Strout, Deborah Levy, Solvej Balle, Gwendoline Riley, Maggie O'Farrell, Elisa Shua Dusapin, Ali Smith, Emily St John Mandel, Eva Hornung and many, many more. You can look at all of our Most Anticipated Reads for 2026 HERE.

Speaking of Eva Hornung, wildly talented SA author—whose previous award-winning novels Dog Boy, and The Last Garden, are firm Matilda favourites—is joining us for Constellations Festival next Wednesday evening at the Stirling Library, and tickets are still available HERE. (Eva's new book, The Minstrels, is extraordinary).

Constellations: Not Writers' Week is an umbrella festival that allows writers, bookshops, organisations and those responsible for partnership programming who were to be involved with Adelaide Writers' Week 2026 to create a space for the writing and reading community in the city of Adelaide, in the absence of much-loved Writers' Week. It does not seek to replace Adelaide Writers' Week, which we are mourning, as we know many of you are, too. There's some fabulous events and initiatives, including Constellations Bookshop Day on Thursday March 5.

Our featured author in this month's Review is the thoughtful and generous, Sarah Hall, whose elemental and puckish Helm, has been chosen for both our February Book Lovers Subscription Service, and Matilda Bookshop Book Club. The interview is as incandescent as her writing. Browse our archive of A uthor Q&As here.

Happy Reading,

Jo, Gavin, Molly, Kasey, Rose, Heather, Nadia & Emilie

What We're Reading

Emilie: Mantle by Romy Ash (out March)

I'm a few chapters into this book from my 2026 most anticipated list. So far, we have an intense exploration of pre-emptory grief - but more mysterious elements are just starting to creep into the narrative, and I am hooked!

Gavin: Jesus Christ Kinski by Benjamin Myers (out now)

A crazed flight deep into the dark centre of Klaus Kinksi's depraved and warped brain, this is a bravura work of imaginative genius that also works as a compelling treatise on the creative impulse.

Heather: A Concise Compendium of Wonder: A Triptych by Ceridwen Dovey, Ursula Dubosarsky and Jennifer Mills (out now)

In preparation for the Adelaide Festival Show, I've been reading and loving A Concise Compendium of Wonder, a trio of reimagined fairy tales by Ceridwen Dovey, Ursula Dubosarsky and Jennifer Mills.

Jo: Phantom Days by Angela O'Keeffe (out late April)

Partly told by a book, this short gem of a novel tells the story of Isobel and her relationships while skilfully exploring the link between book and reader.

Kasey: White Moss by Anna Nerkagi, translated by Irina Sadovina (out April)

White Moss is a masterclass in isolation. Always held at a distance, the reader is invited to witness the rhythms of life in a Nenet community and the increasingly emergent conflict between modernity and tradition. A sense of deep loneliness pervades the book. I can’t wait to share it with you.

Molly: A Beautiful Loan by Mary Costello (out late March)

A young woman in mid-80s Dublin, is in thrall to first an older, adventurous but private mountain climber; and then to a kind, but disciplined Algerian immigrant; stunningly evoking an unpredicatable self-transformation. I loved this quiet story, which deftly illumines the perils of absolutism in love and faith.

Nadia: In Love with Love by Ella Risbridger (out now)

Part love letter, part feminist critique, Risbridger takes the reader through a history of the romance genre, from its inception to its pervasiveness today; she seeks to answer, why do we keep returning to happy endings.

Rose: Ruins, Child by Giada Scodellaro (out now)

The winner of the 2024 Novel Prize is a work of surrealist experimentation centring on six women in the same apartment building who film their lives over the years and watch an ever-lengthening highlights reel every year. Described as an ode to communal ruins and resistance, it's a difficult but meditative read; I'm letting it wash over me like a surrealist film.

Staff Pick

Vigil by George Saunders

Lincoln in the Bardo is an all-time favourite of mine, so it’s a pleasure to slip back into the madcap underworld of Saunders’ magnum opus. Here, a seasoned Bardo guide must usher a dying oil tycoon through a final reckoning. More accessible than Bardo, yet alive with the same batshit audacity and enormous heart. Is Saunders offering catharsis, or quietly skewering our hunger for moral revenge? Excellent Book Club fodder. HEATHER

Book Club News

In our return to book clubs in 2026, we chatted about the elemental and feral Helm for Matilda Bookshop Book Club (Tuesday nights, monthly, in the Stirling Hotel), Heart the Lover for Red Door Book Club (Wednesday nights, monthly, in the bookshop), and Madonna in a Fur Coat for our Thursday night book club, Matilda, Translated.

For further information about all of our fabulously dynamic book clubs, as well as the most recent wrap ups of the adult sessions, or to book in, please click here.

Kids Book Club News

Dear book-loving young people, we run three book clubs for kids, Magical Minds, The Matilda Society, and Chapter & Ink book clubs. Newcomers are always welcome for engaged chats and snacks in our cozy bookshop setting. But be quick, sessions sell out fast.

Term One Sessions Next Up:

The Matilda Society: The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest by Aubrey Hartman on Monday March 2

Magical Minds: The Adventures of Pongo and Stink by Lisa Nicol on Monday March 23

Chapter & Ink: Kings of this World by Elizabeth Knox on Wednesday March 25

Highlight on Authors Series

Welcome to this month's Highlight on Authors series, where we ask authors (whose books we've read and absolutely loved) questions on books and writing.

The next author we're introducing you to is one of our very favourite authors, Sarah Hall, discussing the mercurial tour de force, Helm.

(We've provided a glimpse of the interview below):

Highlight on Author: Sarah Hall

Why do you tell stories?

It’s not so much a compulsion to tell stories, writing just feels like the best way for me to communicate ideas and expressions, far better than speaking! Picture a quiet, wild-looking kid ranging around the Cumbrian moorland, thinking about realities and creating virtual realities in her head; that was my childhood and it must have laid the groundwork. I feel like my imagination is quite athletic, and it needs to run all the time.

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To read the rest of this thoughtful and reflective interview, click HERE.