While You Were Reading

Words are messy. Love is messier.

A hilarious, insightful new novel from the creators of Books on the Rail.

Meet Beatrix Babbage – 29-year-old dog-earer of books and accidental destroyer of weddings.

After ruining her best friend's nuptials, Bea relocates to the other side of the country in search of a fresh start, including meeting new people, living life to the fullest and finally pulling off balayage.

But after a few months, life is more stagnant than ever. Bea's job is dead-end. Her romantic life? Non-existent. And her only friends are her books, her barista and her cleaning lady.

​Then Bea stumbles across a second-hand novel, inscribed with notes. Besotted with the poetic inscriptions, Bea is determined to find the author ... and along the way, she finds herself entangled in one hell of a love quadrangle.

Funny, poignant and insightful, While You Were Reading reveals that there's no such thing as perfection, the value of true friendship and, most importantly, the power of not living in fiction, but still reading it … Often.

A love story for book lovers that celebrates much more than romance.

Ali Berg is Co-founder of Books on the Rail with Michelle Kalus. She is also Creative Director and Co-founder of Hedgehog Agency, Melbourne. Together they wrote The Book Ninja, published in 2018 by Simon & Schuster Australia, which has been sold to nine different territories around the world. Their second book, While You Were Reading, is published in 2019.

Michelle Kalus is is a primary school teacher and Co-founder of Books on the Rail with Ali Berg. Together they wrote The Book Ninja, published in 2018 by Simon & Schuster Australia, which has been sold to nine different territories around the world. Their second book, While You Were Reading, is published in 2019.

While You Were Reading
Simon & Schuster Australia
Authors: Ali Berg and Michelle Kalus
ISBN: 9781925750560
RRP: $24.99

Interview with Ali Berg and Michelle Kalus

Question: What inspired the story of While You Were Reading?

Ali Berg and Michelle Kalus: While You Were Reading is about a young woman who gets swept up in one hell of a love quadrangle! And one of the pieces in this puzzle is a Mystery Writer - the annotator of a book found discarded in a secondhand bookstore. During the early brainstorming of While You Were Reading, we loved the mystery and romance inherent in falling in love with somebody's mind. Of being intoxicated by their deepest thoughts. As the blurb for our book reads, we also wanted to write a love story for book lovers that celebrated much more than romance! It's quirky, modern, bookish and draws together all the different relationships one has. Friends, family, work wives, fictional loves, baristas! We hoped to create a relatable picture of the many bonds needed to create a full life, and how these relationships ebb and flow.


Question: What was the best part about creating the character of Beatrix?

Ali Berg and Michelle Kalus: Creating a character who is as obsessed with reading as us? What could be better! Really, we love Bea because she is so relatable. She is a little wacky, yet flawed and doesn't have the perfect life plan set out. We also loved living vicariously through her romantic escapades as she navigates relationships in all their messy, unpredictable, beautiful ways.


Question: Why did you decide to set While You Were Reading in Melbourne?

Ali Berg and Michelle Kalus: As Melbournians, it felt natural to write a story in which cafes, bookstores and streets we love were interwoven. We think it's important to, in the most part, 'write what you know' as it allows you to create authentic and dynamic characters and settings. Plus, the cafe culture and book scene are so rich over here that it made the perfect backdrop for caffeine addicted / book obsessed Bea.


Question: Can you tell us about Books on the Rail?

Michelle Kalus: In 2016, Ali moved back to Melbourne after living in London for two years. Over in the UK she met Hollie, the Books on the Underground founder. Reading and sharing stories have always been a huge part of our lives and friendship. So, determined to infect Melbournians with our love of reading, it made sense for us to come together to launch Australia's own roving library and launch Books on the Rail.

We started by leaving our own books and those purchased from second-hand bookstores on Melbourne trains and trams. The first book we let loose on the rails was The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons - an absolute favourite of ours. Since then, we have developed a thriving following and now collaborate with publishers and authors, distributing their notable and up-and-coming books. Thanks to our crafty crew of Book Ninjas (we have over 1000 and counting!), Books on the Rail is now Australia wide, with over 7000 books in circulation. What started as a passion project (and an excuse for the two of us to spend more time together) has grown into a book sharing movement driven by passionate book worms and random act of kindness ninjas. We have been so overwhelmed by the response to this movement - it is clear that a love of reading is alive and well in Australia!


Interview by Brooke Hunter

While You Were Reading Simon & Schuster Australia
Authors: Ali Berg and Michelle Kalus
ISBN: 9781925750560
RRP: $24.99