The start of a new month means there's a new issue of Readings Monthly available online and in our shops. Below you can read managing director Joe Rubbo's foreword from the latest issue as he talks about the Australian literary landscape and encourages us all to read Australian as we launch our inaugural Readings Australian Fiction Month.
Keep an eye on the blog for more updates and recommended new releases throughout the month!
When I first started at Readings, I would often work evenings and weekends. My colleagues on those shifts had read more widely than I had, and would spend those shifts discussing the novels they loved and what they were excited to read next. This was over 20 years ago, and I distinctly remember the books that were recommended to me. There was the time an older colleague picked out Cormac McCarthy for me, or another time when I was pointed in the direction of Saul Bellow. We would rarely talk about Australian fiction, and almost never recommend these novels among ourselves. There were novels that broke through, of course, but never in a way to override our prevailing immaturity; the thinking that writing to be admired would almost never come from here. That Australian novels were secondary. The cultural cringe was strong, even among us booksellers, and we had a whole Australian Literature section at our disposal every shift. While you still come across people who never read Australian novels – to their detriment – there has been an undeniable shift in this thinking. The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas came out in 2008 – there was a long period in the bookshop where it felt like everyone who walked in the door bought a copy of that book. When a customer came to the counter with the question, ‘Have you got a copy of ...’, you could invariably finish their sentence with the ‘The Slap’. Its success was because it was Australian, not despite it.
A couple of years earlier, Tony Birch published Shadowboxing, which was more of a slow burn but has proved to be a huge hit with readers over the years; it captures a moment in time that can never be recovered and illustrates the importance of fiction in preserving collective memory. Tim Winton continued to build on his remarkable body of work with books like The Turning, Breath and The Shepherd’s Hut. Helen Garner experienced a massive resurgence as a new generation of Australian readers discovered her backlist. The Stella Prize was launched, and the inaugural winner, The Strays, was a hit with Readings customers. Writing this piece, my mind is flooded with authors names such as Murray Bail, M.J. Hyland, Stephanie Bishop, Nam Le, Alexis Wright and Peter Carey. There are too many to name, but this exercise makes you reflect on the wealth of artistry that has been created by Australian authors. As Mark reflects in his column, most of these books have been written over the last 50 years or so. It is something that deserves to be celebrated. Join us, and read Australian this month.
