As streets remain deserted and shops shuttered up, Melbourne’s bookstores have launched a four-month initiative to bring the magic of literature into our homes: Melbourne City Reads.
Every month, the Victorian capital’s seven leading bookstores – Dymocks Melbourne, Hill of Content, Mary Martin Southbank, North Melbourne Books, The Paperback Bookshop, Readings Carlton and Readings State Library – will select a book by a Melbourne author, pricing it at 25 per cent off to encourage readers to explore the city’s local talent.
The initiative was born from the need to attract more people to the city and breathe life back into its bookstores following almost two years of lockdowns and uncertainty.
It has arguably come at the perfect time, helping Melburnians to keep themselves occupied from the safety of their homes during the current lockdown.
The first book of the initiative, which began this month, is Allee Richards’ debut novel, Small Joys of Real Life, which is set in the inner suburbs of Melbourne and follows a group of young people trying to find some direction in their lives.
September’s book is the second novel by Miles Allinson, In Moonland, while October’s is Emily Bitto’s Wild Abandon.
In November, the initiative will come to an end with a collection of poetry by Maxine Beneba Clark, called How Decent Folk Behave.
At the end of each month, the Wheeler Centre and the Melbourne Writers Festival will host a special event with the selected author.
The managing director of Readings, Mark Rubbo, hopes the initiative will benefit both Melburnians and the city’s bookshops, which have struggled in the face of the lockdowns.
“I thought Borders was the most serious challenge to the viability of Readings that I’ve faced, but Borders pales in comparison to COVID,” he said.
“The protracted lockdowns and the depopulation of city offices have had a terrible impact on bookshops in the City of Melbourne area; because offices closed down and universities were running remotely, no one was coming to the city.
“[Bookshops] have struggled to rebuild their business, only to be hit with another lockdown.
“I was just trying to think of things that we could do to get people interested in our bookshops and discovering the great writers that live and work in Melbourne.”
Rubbo firmly believes that Melbourne’s literary culture is one of the richest in the world, but admits it has been difficult to deal with the uncertainties of the pandemic.
“Our shop in the State Library is 60 per cent down on its pre-COVID levels and our Carlton shop is down 12 to 20 per cent,” he said.
“It’s a similar story for our colleagues at The Paperback, Hill of Content, Mary Martin, North Melbourne Books and Dymocks in Collins Street.”
The City of Melbourne and the state government have welcomed the new initiative to bring bookshops back to life, approving a small grant to use for promotional materials, such as posters and bookmarks.
The owner of Dymocks Melbourne, Dino Traverso, said the initiative is the perfect incentive to encourage readers to choose local authors.
The Collins Street bookshop has not only had to face the absence of customers perusing its shelves, but also the challenge of being a franchise and, subsequently, not seeing the direct benefits of online purchases.
“We now do ‘click and collect’, where customers can buy a book and can collect it from our shop; we get that sale,” he said.
“It’s a small part from our sales, but it does help.
“Definitely, statistics suggest that the book industry has grown by 50 to 60 per cent in the past 12 months; people are reading more because they’ve got more time at home which is a benefit to us, but it’s not beneficial if they’re not coming to our shop.
“That’s the reason why we’re doing things like Melbourne City Reads: to try to encourage people to make that effort and buy from the CBD’s bookshops.”
