I am writing this column from Jaipur Literature Festival; it’s early days yet but yesterday I was privileged to hear one of my favourite authors, Paul Theroux, speak about his career as both a travel writer and novelist; having had three novels published and needing to make a living he thought travel writing was the way to go so he hopped on a train in London and travelled to India, Asia, Russia and back, which resulted in one of the finest travel narratives of modern times, The Great Railway Bazaar. Theroux famously befriended Nobel Prize winner V.S. Naipaul in Uganda, where they both happened to be in the ‘60s. The two also famously fell out and at Jaipur, Theroux joined fellow writers Hanif Kureishi and Amit Chaudhuri in paying homage to Naipul’s landmark work, A House for Mr Biswas. Theroux described it as ‘one of the finest books I’ve ever read’. Naipaul was in the audience, and he was invited to the stage afterwards. Naipaul, who is suffering from Parkinson’s, was visibly moved as he thanked the panel and Theroux in particular. Paul Theroux’s Mr Bones has just come out.

The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald ran a story recently about the resurgence of the print book and the plateauing of the sales in ebooks and reading devices. People often ask me how things are going for books; I hope it’s because they are concerned and want bookshops to hang around. Are the stories of resurgence true? Well there is an element of truth about it, and I’d say that the printed book is not dead. People flocked to books last Christmas, with Nielsen Bookscan reporting book sales up 1.2% over the holiday period; even more encouraging was a 6% increase in sales of children’s books. What’s heartening is that, for Readings at least, Australian authored books dominated our top 20, led of course by The Narrow Road to the Deep North. The list included Julia Gillard’s My Story, Helen Garner’s This House of Grief, David Walsh’s idiosyncratic memoir A Bone of Fact, Peter Carey’s Amnesia, Andy Griffiths The 52-Storey Treehouse, Don Watson’s The Bush and Graeme Simsion’s second book The Rosie Effect. I was particularly pleased that the inaugural winners of the Readings Prize – Only the Animals by Ceridwen Dovey (New Australian Writing Award) and Song for a Scarlet Runner (Children’s Book Prize) by Julie Hunt were both in our top 100 for the year.

Ed. note: You can find a complete list of our 100 bestselling books at Readings in 2014

Titles announced so far for 2015 suggest a strong year for Australian writing. I’m particularly interested in the novel Wolf, Wolf by Australian–South African writer Eben Venter, which is about the South African rugby tour of Australia in 1971. The tour was particularly divisive and I vividly remember attending demonstrations against the tour. Fourth Estate are excited by an Australian debut historical novel by Robyn Cadwallader, The Anchoress, set in 12th century Britain. It’s already been sold internationally and I’m sure the publishers are hoping to repeat the success of Hannah Kent’s Burial Rites. Two Readings employees have books coming out this year – A.S. Patric’s novel Black Rock White City in April and last year’s Victorian Premier’s unpublished manuscript award winner Fever of Animals by Miles Allinson in September. Award winning poet Lisa Gorton ventures into fiction with The Life of Houses in April. I’m looking forward to Rod Jones’ The Mothers in June. His first novel Julia Paradise was exceptional. Penguin has high hopes for Steve Toltz’s second novel Quicksand. I have always admired Tony Birch’s work, so I’m eagerly anticipating his new novel Ghost River in October. There will be a slew of political books which is led off this month by David Day’s biography of Paul Keating; Day is a noted historian and this will be his fourth biography of an Australian prime minister.

Finally, John Wylie, merchant banker and president of the State Library of Victoria (SLV) board, and Myriam Boisbouvier-Wylie have provided an endowment to fund The Boisbouvier Founding Chair in Australian Literature at the University of Melbourne. The aim of the position is to advance the teaching, understanding and public appreciation of Australian literature. As I understand it, the position will go to a writer so it’s not purely an academic post. Wylie and Boisbouvier join Maureen and Tony Wheeler in offering significant philanthropic support to Australian writing for Melbourne-based institutions. It’s very exciting to see.

Mark Rubbo