Old novel, reading material (8)
I believe the answer is:
organdie
'material' is the definition.
(organdie is a kind of material)
'old novel reading' is the wordplay.
'old' becomes 'o' (common abbreviation eg in OE for Old English).
'novel' indicates anagramming the letters (letters in a new or novel order).
'reading' is an anagram of 'rgandie'.
'o'+'rgandie'='ORGANDIE'
(Other definitions for organdie that I've seen before include "Fine material" , "I raged on about the fabric" , "Fine stiffened translucent fabric" , "Fine slightly stiff cotton dress fabric" , "Oddly ignored a fine cotton muslin" .)