Cirrus@Austlit

Transcript available on the website.

Show notes

• Mark has vivid memories of reading Mirolov Sasek‘s books on cities (including This Is London and This Is Paris) as a child, as well as Enid Blyton’s The Secret Seven and The Famous Five. He also, surprisingly, read and loved John Steinbeck ’s Cannery Row in as when he was 11. Mark also read Australian writers, including Allan Marshall‘s I Can Jump Puddles  and Hal Porter’s The Watcher on the Cast-Iron Balcony : An Australian Autobiography .
• Mark discusses the differences in sales of specific books between stores (and mentions the works of Readings employees A. S. Patric and Miles Allinson).
• The first Australian bestseller Mark experienced was Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip  in 1977.  
• Mark refers to other leading independent bookstores in Australia, including Glebe Books in Sydney.
• He also reflects on the changes in the Australian publishing industry over time, and the rise of small and independent publishers including Michael Heyward of Text Publishing, Hillary McPhee, Morry Schwartz and the late Di Gribble.
• Mark founded the Readings Prize in 2014 to support Australian literature. It now includes the Children’s Book Prize, Young Adult Book Prize and Prize for New Australian Fiction.
• Readings supports the Indigenous Literacy Foundation.