The start of a new month means that there's a new issue of Readings Monthly available online and in our shops. Below you can read the foreword from the latest issue – and keep an eye on the blog for more updates and recommended new releases throughout the month!

This past weekend, 12 fellow booksellers from Readings and I attended the annual BookPeople conference. Previously known as the Australian Booksellers Association, BookPeople is celebrating its 100-year anniversary. Over the years, the association has played an important role in uniting and representing booksellers from around Australia. The conference is one of the only times in the year that we can all get together. Readings has long been a member of the association; former managing director Mark Rubbo served as president of the board and the current CEO, Robbie Egan, was a long-term Readings employee.

We were spoilt by the publishers, who brought along some astoundingly talented authors with books coming out later this year, as Alison outlines in her column. There was an award ceremony where booksellers from around the country were acknowledged for their important contributions to their shops and the profession. Two fantastic Readings staff were nominated for awards: Molly Smith (Readings Emporium), for young bookseller of the year, and Sam Kelly (Readings Doncaster), for children’s bookseller of the year.

While the conference was a positive and inspiring event, we addressed some of the challenges facing independent booksellers in Australia; in particular the market share of independent booksellers, Readings among them, which has fallen from 20% to 13% in recent years. This means that more people are buying from big retailers and internationally owned online sites, rather than their local indie bookshop.

Anna Burkey from Australia Reads presented further worrying statistics. One that surprised me was that 44% of Australians have a low level of literacy. The other was that children’s participation in reading for pleasure is trending downwards, dropping from 78% in 2018 to 72% in 2022.

Meeting with all the amazing booksellers and writers on the weekend, I was reminded that all good bookshops are so much more than just shops; we do important work in all our communities to promote a love of reading.