It’s the time of year when The Readings Foundation allocates its grants for the following year. The Foundation raises money from 10% of Readings’ profits, individual donations and our customers also contribute by making a small donation when they have an item gift-wrapped. It’s a lovely but also very difficult time as the requests we receive outstrip our resources and each project is very deserving in its own way. The Foundation’s aims are to support literacy, the arts and the community and we are supporting some lovely projects next year.

For the fourth year in a row we are supporting the Wheeler Centre’s Hot Desk Fellowships – 20 budding writers will receive a small stipend and the use of a desk at the Wheeler Centre for three months. We are also helping the Royal Children’s Hospital’s HUSH Music Foundation, which has just released the 14th CD in their hugely popular music-for-children series, to publish their first book.

In addition, The Readings Foundation will assist Reading Out of Poverty to provide early literacy support in Melbourne’s south east; Somebody’s Daughter Theatre Company to work with children in foster care; Mallee Family Care to work with marginalised families in the Mildura area; the Migrant Information Centre to work with refugees; the Aboriginal Literacy Foundation to work with young indigenous girls; the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre to fund a schools’ program to educate young people about refugees; and Carlton’s Church of All Nations to provide homework and literacy support for the families and students from the Carlton Housing Estates.

You can read more about these recipients and their projects here.

It’s been an interesting year for books and you’ll find lots of recommendations on our website. This year I’ve enjoyed several new discoveries. Scribe published a wonderful first novel by Irish writer Mark Mulholland called A Mad and Wonderful Thing, a taut, moving novel about a sniper targeting British soldiers in Northern Island. Coincidentally, I also read an Irish crime thriller by Adrian McKinty called In the Morning I’ll Be Gone, which almost overlaps with Mulholland’s book. McKinty’s protagonist, Sean Duffy, is with the Royal Ulster Constabulary and on the hunt for an IRA terrorist – great stuff. I also found Gravity, Mary Delahunty’s insider account of Julia Gillard’s days in office, fascinating reading. And in new works from familiar favourites, I have always been a great admirer of Peter Carey’s work and his latest, Amnesia, is a very funny romp with a big sting in the tail. The subtext of the plot is that US agencies were complicit in the destabilisation and dismissal of the Whitlam government. I like it, too, because Readings gets a mention and no, no money changed hands!

This year also saw the presentation of the inaugural Readings New Australian Writing Award. I read many fine new Australian works as a result of this initiative. Our winner was Only the Animals by Ceridwen Dovey, which was chosen from a fine shortlist among which I particularly enjoyed Christine Piper’s After Darkness. Piper won the Vogel Award for this novel about a Japanese doctor interned in Australia during the war and I found it very affecting and infinitely fascinating. It’s a perfect complement to another great book of the year, The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan.

Mark Rubbo