Mark Rubbo
Mark Rubbo is chairman of Readings. He is a past president of the Australian Booksellers Association and was founding chair of the Melbourne Writers Festival. In 2006 he was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia.
Review — 14 Sep 2022
Lessons by Ian McEwan
One of the perks of being a bookseller is that you’re able to read books long before they are published. I read Lessons back in June and couldn’t stop telling…
Blog post — 28 Feb 2022
Mark's Say: Readings Foundation
Around 2008, when it became apparent that thanks to the community’s support, Readings would survive the onslaught of Borders, we decided we needed to acknowledge that support and the efforts…
Blog post — 2 Feb 2022
Mark's Say: February, 2022
As I mentioned in one of my columns last year, the lockdowns had a terrible impact on the sale of books in bricks-and-mortar shops. For books that were first published…
Review — 1 May 2022
Bedtime Story by Chloe Hooper
How does one react when one’s partner is diagnosed with cancer? In her new memoir Bedtime Story, Chloe Hooper is forced to grapple with that question when her partner…
Review — 28 Mar 2022
On Helen Garner: Writers on Writers by Sean O’Beirne
Sean O’Beirne first read Helen Garner when he was 17 years old. Reading Monkey Grip, what struck him immediately was the voice, the confident voice stating, ‘this is me…
Review — 2 Mar 2022
Son of Sin by Omar Sakr
Omar Sakr won the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for poetry in 2020 for his collection The Lost Arabs, and this is his first major work of fiction. Son of…
Review — 2 Mar 2022
Goodnight, Vivienne, Goodnight by Steven Carroll
This is the final novel in Steven Carroll’s series based on T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. Carroll hadn’t intended to write a quartet but after the publication of the…
Blog post — 7 Dec 2021
Mark Rubbo's best of 2021
Below our managing director Mark Rubbo shares his favourite reads from 2021.
Wild Abandon by Emily Bitto
Will flees to the US to escape the misery of a breakup; a…
Review — 2 Nov 2021
Dancer: A Biography for Philippa Cullen by Evelyn Juers
The dancer, Philippa Cullen, died tragically in India at the age of 25. Evelyn Juers’ biography of this complex young woman runs to 550 pages. You may think, do Cullen’s…
Blog post — 4 Oct 2021
Mark's Say: October, 2021
Twenty years ago, there were well over 15 bookshops in Melbourne’s CBD. They included iconic names such as The Technical Bookshop, McGill’s, Angus and Robertson, Collins, Reader’s Feast and The…