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 — 23 Jun 2024
How to Be a Citizen: Learning to Rely Less on Rules and More on Each Other by C.L. Skach
C.L. Skach is a respected constitutional lawyer; she’s advised governments around the world, including Iraq, on developing their constitutions – rules-based order, if you will. Her career has been based…
Blog post — 5 Jun 2024
The end of an era
Mark Rubbo chats with Desiree Boardman, Readings Hawthorn’s beloved manager of almost three decades, ahead of her much-deserved retirement.
Desi chuckles when I catch up with her in the lead…
Review — 20 May 2024
How the World Made the West by Josephine Quinn
The Jaipur Literature Festival is certainly one of the great festivals of the world. It draws an amazing array of guests from the Indian subcontinent and beyond. I was fortunate…
Review — 22 Apr 2024
Wanderings: Small Paintings and Photographs by Bruno Leti & Alex Skovron (poetry; ed.)
As well as being a painter, photographer and print-maker, Bruno Leti is a prolific maker of artists’ books. These books are themselves pieces of art painstakingly put together and beautifully…
Review — 21 Apr 2024
Give While You Live: A Practical Guide to More and Better Giving in Australia by Peter Winneke
The 200 wealthiest families in Australia have an aggregate wealth of $563 billion and 56,000 Australians have assets worth more than $10 million. Many families have more money than they…
Review — 21 Apr 2024
The Coast Road by Alan Murrin
Izzy Keaveney is in an unhappy marriage; her friend Colette Crowley ruefully observes, ‘So what if your husband’s a bit of a bully, they all are in their own way.’…
Review — 21 Apr 2024
Table for Two by Amor Towles
The television adaptation of Amor Towles charming bestseller, A Gentleman in Moscow, has just started streaming. I’m not sure how it will translate, for Towles’ writing exhibits a style…
Blog post — 21 Nov 2023
Mark's Say, November 2023
As I write this, I’m about to head off to Bali for the 20th Ubud Writers & Readers Festival. It’s a testament to its founders, Melbourne-born Janet DeNeefe and her…
Review — 1 Sep 2023
Doll's Eye by Leah Kaminsky
Karin Magnussen was a Nazi scientist who was complicit in research into the pigmentation of irises to provide scientific proof of Nazi racial theories. Originally, her research was done on…
Review — 31 Aug 2023
The Visitors by Jane Harrison
On the 26th of January 1788, a fleet of 11 British ships sailed into Sydney Harbour. From the British side, the arrival is well documented. What we don’t really know…
