A new book begins at 40
The Age
Saturday August 22, 2009
Having helped to shape Melbourne's literary landscape, Mark Rubbo has now unleashed a new chapter in Australian fiction. Andrew Stephens meets the man of books. THE little window in the laneway alongside Readings, Carlton, is papered with notices. Some neatly printed, others scrawled on pages torn from notepads, and they all offer/seek rooms to let/rent. It's a roulette of a place, this window €” a local landmark €” that has no doubt led to many interesting meetings. Even to love: writer Christos Tsiolkas posted a note here in 1984 advertising for a housemate, and the man who answered has been his partner ever since.On the other side of the window, there are the well-tramped aisles of books, full of other stories, facts and fictions. For those who thirst for the written word, this very Melburnian bookshop is an oasis of style, a contrast to the supersized corporate competitors.Independent bookseller Readings is a business too, of course, and it has several branches. But its place in Melbourne culture is so fondly regarded that it engenders loyalty rather than loyalty cards. Literary figures haunt it. Melbourne uni students adore it. Cinephiles float in from the Nova across the road. Lots of black-framed spectacles can be seen, and a rarefied atmosphere sometimes distinguishes the back-of-counter area where, it is said, many a budding writer secures a shift.Mark Rubbo, Readings' managing director and one-time owner of Lygon Street's Professor Longhair's Music Shop, is standing in the fiction aisle, just near the Australian writers section, with a stack of handsome paperbacks in his arms. These are copies of Readings and writings: 40 years in books, a collection of short fiction from Australian writers such as Tsiolkas, Alex Miller, Cate Kennedy, Elliot Perlman, Kate Holden, Tony Birch, Peter Goldsworthy and Jenny Sinclair, all Readings lovers. The book has been published to mark the store's 40th anniversary, as well as to launch the charitable Readings Foundation, which supports literacy, the arts and community organisations such as the Brotherhood of St Laurence. Rubbo hopes the new foundation (replacing a long-established unofficial fund) will put about $70,000 a year back into the community.These writers, and book lovers generally, well know the indescribable joy of wandering a bookshop's aisles, scanning spines, leafing through pages and eventually choosing a book to buy (or not). It's an intimate ritual of desire and, hopefully, satisfaction. Rubbo, to be sure, is a successful businessman who has capitalised on this happy affliction. He understands because he is a book and music lover himself, a champion of literary life and a man who has contributed enormously to Melbourne's writing scene. And he's a warm and generous bloke, too: it's plain from his face, demeanour and other people's accounts of him.Rubbo didn't start Readings: that was done in 1969 by Ross and Dot Reading and their business partner Peter Reid, with their experiences working at the esteemed Cheshire's bookshop in Collins Street behind them. Rubbo, who abandoned an arts degree to open Professor Longhair's, has done a whole lot of other things since he took the Readings business over from them in 1976, alongside Steve Smith and Greg Young, calling their three shops Readings Records and Books. Smith looked after the records, Young (now departed from the business) did the finances, and Rubbo did the books. "I went into my own little world, bookworld," he says with a laugh. "And stayed there."Rubbo remembers the playwright Jack Hibberd coming into the shop and saying in his gravelly voice that Rubbo ought to sell Australian books only. About the same time, Penguin had a new publishing director, Brian Johns, who "wanted to drag Australian publishing into the light; he was sick of being sycophantic to the Brits". And Hilary McPhee and Di Gribble had started their self-named publishing house, delivering Australian writers to the public €” including Helen Garner's Monkey Grip in 1977. "They all influenced me," says Rubbo. "I wanted to help promote those writers and get them to the readers."Monkey Grip was huge for the store, especially given the novel's local setting. As well as new Australian writing, Readings began to dabble in alternative American writing, shoring up its reputation as something special with books in such areas as self-help, gestalt therapy, neuro-linguistics, Jungian psychology and psychotherapy, self-sufficiency, eastern religions, feminism and much contemporary fiction.Now there are branches at Port Melbourne, Malvern, Hawthorn and St Kilda, plus a new compact edition in the foyer of the State Library, manned by Rubbo's son Joe. Joe is one of four children: Rubbo met his wife, Wendy, when she was working for Angus & Robertson publishers and used to call in at Readings Carlton. "I thought she was pretty cute," he says. "That was in 1981 €” we married a few years later."Since those days, Rubbo has gained much respect in the industry and each of his stores (he gives a thorough history of them in Readings and writings) has developed a distinct identity, while cultivating that particular Readings atmosphere of literary dedication."I'm terribly ambitious for it," he says, sitting in his offices around the corner from the Carlton store. "So I wanted it to be the best. I'm ambitious for it to contribute to its environment, to be interesting and reflective of what people want. I want it to make a difference."It's not just the shop that has made a difference: Rubbo is tirelessly active (he still works 12-hour days) and was largely responsible for founding the Melbourne Writers Festival in 1986 after he was approached to get together a literary component for the State Government's Spoleto festival (which grew into the Melbourne International Arts Festival).Rubbo had already been organising regular literary events, inviting writers such as Garner, Robert Drewe and Gerald Murnane to do readings at the Universal Theatre in Fitzroy. This eventually migrated to Mietta O'Donnell's parlour off Collins Street at the former Naval and Military Club. "She was all about it being an arts salon," recalls Rubbo. "She approached me and said why don't you do it at my place? It was really easy because she'd set the room up and we'd just go there. The writers loved it because she usually asked them upstairs (afterwards) for dinner. So all these impoverished writers would be treated like royalty."Rubbo has since been a judge of the Miles Franklin Literary Award, earned an Order of Australia, was president of the Australian Booksellers' Association, chair of the Australian Book Review editorial board, and treasurer at La Mama Theatre. He's been outspoken on copyright law and book pricing and, most recently, had a big coup as a member of the bid steering committee that successfully won the UNESCO title for Melbourne as a City of Literature, bringing us the Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas (at which he is a board member).One of Rubbo's long-time friends is the author Alex Miller. They've known each other for more than 30 years, though Miller says he can't remember how he met the bookseller, who has been "a power for good in my world"."But the feeling is he's always been there," says Miller. "He does the work and he doesn't big-note himself about anything, ever. He's been involved in everything of worth, pretty well, in the literary life of Melbourne for the past 30 years or more, actively promoting Australian writers, and an active promoter of literary fiction, which isn't by any means the largest seller in the industry."And now there's the foundation, which Rubbo explains grew directly out of the accommodation window at Carlton: people placing the notices have always been asked to make a donation into a tin at the counter, the money going to support local charities, schools and so on.So after interviewing Rubbo, I pop by that window facing into Tyne Street €” I'd forgotten it existed €” for a gander. The ads are probably little different to the ones that first appeared at one of the previous Readings Carlton venues in the 1970s. There's someone in Collingwood looking for a housemate, stating that it would be a bonus if that person were a "lover of fonts, chilli and obscure trivia". Another ad invites applicants to live with "a nerdy journalist and a doctorate film student" in Fitzroy North. There are other quirky ones, but what marks them all is that they're well-written, expressive. Wordy types, those Readings loiterers.Readings and writings: Forty years in books, $24.95 will be launched on Monday at the State Library of Victoria. Proceeds from the book go to the Readings Foundation.
© 2009 The Age