Joe Rubbo
Joe Rubbo is the managing director of Readings
Review — 21 Apr 2024
Long Island by Colm Tóibín
Colm Tóibín’s new novel, Long Island, reunites readers with Eilis Lacey, the heroine from his wildly successful novel Brooklyn, published in 2009. It is a favourite of mine…
Blog post — 14 Apr 2024
Foreword, with Joe Rubbo
January and February always feel a bit slow in the world of bookselling, customer numbers dwindle and the number of books being published slows. It’s a good time to tidy…
Blog post — 5 Mar 2024
Foreword with Joe Rubbo, March 2024
As regular readers of this publication will know, this is my first column in this space. At the end of last year Mark Rubbo decided to retire his regular column…
Blog post — 14 Sep 2023
Mark's brilliant career: A tribute to Mark Rubbo
As some of you may know already, Readings’ long-serving managing director, Mark Rubbo, has recently retired from his position. This idea of retirement has been floating around for some years…
Review — 30 Aug 2022
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell
It is 1560 and Alfonso II d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, is unsatisfied with previous portraits of Lucrezia di Cosimo de’Medici. There ought to be a painting that matches her exquisite…
Review — 30 May 2022
Translating Myself and Others by Jhumpa Lahiri
Admirers of Jhumpa Lahiri’s work might mistakenly think that working in languages other than English was a new direction for her, but as she recounts in Translating Myself and Others…
Review — 28 Apr 2022
Sunbathing by Isobel Beech
Sunbathing is the stunning debut novel from Melbourne writer Isobel Beech. It follows the story of a young woman who is invited to stay with her friends Giulia and Fab…
Review — 6 Sep 2021
Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
Colson Whitehead’s new novel, Harlem Shuffle, centres on Ray Carney, a furniture store owner who is doing a bad job of flying straight. His father was an infamous crook…
Review — 28 Jun 2021
The Night Always Comes by Willy Vlautin
In Willy Vlautin’s The Night Always Comes, Lynette lives across the road from the Interstate 5 in Portland, with her Mum and her brother Kenny, who has an intellectual…
Review — 26 Apr 2021
Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri
Whereabouts is Jhumpa Lahiri’s first novel written in Italian – a remarkable feat considering she learnt the language later in life. It’s incredible then to discover that after the Italian…
