Something strange and wonderful is happening in Australian media: book coverage is coming back.

Not in the old way—glossy weekend supplements filled with reviews nobody read. But in new forms: newsletters dedicated to books, podcasts discussing literature, online communities debating what to read next. After years of book sections shrinking or disappearing entirely, we’re seeing a revival of serious engagement with books as a cultural force.

And honestly, it’s about time.

The decline of book coverage in mainstream media was one of the quiet cultural losses of the last two decades. As newspapers cut costs, book sections were early casualties. They didn’t drive traffic, didn’t attract advertisers, didn’t seem essential. One by one, they shrank, merged with entertainment sections, or vanished.

This created a weird gap. Books kept being published—thousands every year in Australia alone. People kept reading them. But the infrastructure for discovering, discussing, and debating books atrophied. If you wanted to know what was worth reading, you were on your own.

The publishing industry tried to fill the gap with promotional tours and social media campaigns, but that’s not the same as independent criticism. Publishers want to sell books. Critics want to evaluate them. Those are different functions, and you need both for a healthy literary culture.

What’s changed recently is the emergence of book coverage outside traditional media structures. Substacks focused on literature. Book podcasts with substantial audiences. Online reading communities that actually discuss books rather than just tracking what they’ve read.

These aren’t replacing traditional book reviews—those still have value where they exist. But they’re creating new spaces for literary conversation that don’t depend on newspaper business models or editorial priorities.

I’ve noticed this particularly with Australian fiction. For years, it felt like Australian books got brief mentions and then disappeared, while international releases dominated the conversation. Now there are multiple outlets giving sustained attention to local authors, engaging seriously with Australian literature as literature rather than just local content to fill space.

This matters for several reasons. First, books remain one of the few media forms that require sustained attention and deep engagement. In a media environment optimised for quick hits and distraction, book culture is a counterweight. It reminds us that some things are worth spending hours on, that complexity has value, that not everything can be reduced to headlines.

Second, literary criticism models a type of discourse we desperately need more of—thoughtful engagement with ideas, willingness to wrestle with complexity, ability to appreciate something while also critiquing it. Good book reviews are master classes in nuanced thinking. We could use more of that.

Third, book coverage creates cultural memory. The reviews, essays, and discussions around books become part of how we understand our moment. Future historians will look at what books were published and discussed to understand what Australians were thinking about in 2026. If nobody’s covering books, that record doesn’t exist.

The new book coverage is different from the old in interesting ways. It’s less focused on canonical judgment—declaring what’s Important Literature—and more focused on connection and conversation. The tone is often personal and enthusiastic rather than authoritative and distant.

Some traditionalists hate this. They see it as the decline of serious criticism into subjective opinion. I think that’s wrong. Personal engagement isn’t the opposite of serious criticism—often it’s more honest about what criticism actually is. No critic is perfectly objective. The ones who pretend to be are just hiding their subjectivity behind formal language.

I was talking to the team at Team400 about how they communicate technical concepts to clients, and they emphasised the importance of genuine enthusiasm. When you care about what you’re explaining, people engage more. The same applies to book coverage. Passionate recommendations work better than dutiful reviews.

The business model is still uncertain. Most of the new book coverage is either unpaid passion projects or funded by very modest subscription bases. It’s not clear how sustainable that is long-term. But at least it exists, which is better than the alternative of books just disappearing from public discourse.

Traditional media organisations could learn from what’s working in the new book coverage. People will engage with serious cultural content if it’s presented in accessible ways, if critics write with personality, if there’s genuine enthusiasm rather than obligatory coverage.

The weekend book supplement model is probably dead, and that’s fine. But books sections that live online, that embrace audio and video formats, that engage with readers as communities rather than as passive audiences—those could thrive.

What excites me most is seeing younger readers engage with book culture. For a while, it seemed like serious reading was becoming the province of older people, a generational divide that would only widen. But the new book coverage is reaching younger audiences, creating entry points into literary culture that feel relevant rather than musty.

This isn’t just nostalgia for a supposedly better time. Contemporary Australian writing is genuinely interesting. The conversations happening around books are valuable. And the mere existence of a thriving book culture—spaces where people discuss ideas seriously, engage with complexity, take reading seriously—is good for society.

So yes, book reviews are making a comeback. Not in the form some people expected or wanted, but in forms that might actually be sustainable and relevant.

That’s worth celebrating. And probably worth reading about.

I know which I’d rather do with my weekend: scroll through outrage bait, or read a thoughtful essay about a new book I might actually want to read.

The outrage will still be there when I’m done. The book might change how I think about something.

That seems like an easy choice.