laura brading
Photo of Laura at home by Andrew Butler
Share a little about yourself ... G'day I'm Laura, co-founder of WellRead. When I don't have my head stuck in a book, you can find me enveloped by two cute small humans, also known as my children, also known as Maggie and Sid. I live with them and my husband Morgs in Austinmer on the south coast of NSW.
For those who have yet to try your incredible book subscription - Could you explain a little about how WellRead works? WellRead is a literary book subscription and gifting service that is all about stimulating the reading lives of our subscribers. We understand just how overwhelming decision-making can be when it comes to selecting new books in a saturated market and so our proposition is that we read mountains of books and cherry-pick the best new literary titles so that you don’t risk wasting precious time and money on duds. In a nutshell, we help people read really good books. You can sign up to receive books monthly or every two months, and we also offer gift subscriptions 3, 6, 9 and 12 month durations. Oh and we have a kid's picture book offering for the budding bibliophiles out there.
Laura and Maggie by Andrew Butler
There are often many little ideas and or steps that occur before the launch of a new business - could you share a little about the journey into developing 'Well Read' book subscription? Before WellRead, there were other bookish pursuits. I studied literature at university, went into book publishing and also worked as a bookseller, but I always had a yearning to do something on my own that I would have creative control over. An instagram page of tiny book reviews turned into "tiny bookstores" (curated book selections in other retail spaces) turned into WellRead.
As an avid reader, I am sure this will be tricky to answer - what have been some of your stand out reads in the last 12 months?
Some of my favourite reads over the past 12 months :
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
The Believer by Sarah Krasnostein
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez
I could go on and on and on...
What is your process in choosing books for the Well Read subscription? - it must be sooo hard narrowing down to one book each month! Look, it’s a tough job, but someone has to read all those books. Some months I might have to read 10+ books before I find a winner, other months the first book I read ends up being the selection we go with but I still want to read a bunch of others to feel sure. I also now have readers who vet books for me - so if it's good enough I'll go on to read it as well. Part of our offering to subscribers is that we provide them with a rich and diverse reading program and so no two WellRead selections will ever be the same. That being said, we do hope that our selections all share a certain magic quality about them
How do you manage the juggle of running a business and life with your family? The short answer is, I don't. Some weeks the business struggles because I have to prioritise my family, other weeks I feel like I get very little quality time with my kids and am a complete stress head. And then every now and again, I'll get a unicorn week where there is some small sense of equilibrium in the air. Knowing that these ebbs and flows are all part of the juggle, and not berating myself for working excessively/ignoring work to be with my kids, does seem to help.
Laura, Morgs, Maggie and Sid by Andrew Butler
Could you share a little about how reading enriches your daily life? Where to start?! Books are a life force to me. They do all the things they promise like offer solace and calm and entertainment, make me more interested and interesting (I hope). But the thing I love most about them, that brings me back to them every day, is their capacity to reveal mysterious connections. Between ideas, feelings, people, places, experiences. Connections that create layers of meaning to my life that would otherwise not be there. They are magic! Also, they help me get to sleep and without them I would be an insomniac. Hooray for books!
If you had a message for your younger self, what would it be? You learn by doing right, so I don't know if I'd divert the course and take back any of those "learnings". But maybe that's simply what I'd say, that you learn by doing and go easy on yourself, girl.
Connect with Laura and explore Wellread at :
@wellread__
book stack by Andrew Butler
