Last chapter near for Reader's Feast
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Last chapter near for Reader's Feast

MARY Dalmau has been selling books for 35 years. In that time she has backed works by authors known and unknown.

She was an early champion of Carlos Ruiz Zafon's bestselling literary thriller, The Shadow of the Wind, and sold plenty of copies at Reader's Feast. Before she read his follow-up, The Angel's Game, she heard from the Spanish novelist that ''one of her relatives'' appeared in the book as a thank you. Lo and behold, when the main character goes into a bookshop in Barcelona, the assistant's name is … Dalmau.

Mary Dalmau is planning a sequel.

Mary Dalmau is planning a sequel.Credit:John Woudstra

But after nearly 20 years running Reader's Feast on Swanston Street, the shop's final chapter is approaching. It will close in a few weeks, another casualty of the collapse of the REDGroup, which also owned Angus & Robertson and Borders. All Borders and company-owned A&R shops are closing.

Ms Dalmau said November would have marked the 20th anniversary of Reader's Feast at its basement location on the corner of Swanston and Bourke streets and she still planned a celebration.

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''We used to have Bourke Street frontage and access from Little Bourke Street - now there is no visibility from the street and no access other than the escalators from Swanston Street,'' she said. ''The infrastructure has not kept up with the times and we have been successful despite the location.''

She said she had survived five owners and had been dogged in her belief that Reader's Feast had to create a shop ''in our own way''.

Its position in the REDGroup was unique - ''We were utterly autonomous'' - and over the years the shop earned a significant reputation for its stock, the quality of its staff, its literary events and the two annual festivals Ms Dalmau established, Writers at the Convent and Crime and Social Justice.

Ms Dalmau was unwilling to blame the oft-touted shift to online book-buying for booksellers' problems. ''I am not of the view (held by Small Business Minister Nick Sherry) that no bookstore will survive in five years, but as an industry we have not worked together well enough to understand what was going on.''

Ms Dalmau envisages her own sequel and is determined to open another bookshop.

''I have 22 booksellers here, three of whom have been with me for 30 years and the average tenure is 17 years,'' she said. ''My focus now is to leave this particular business with dignity and professionalism. But we're not going away from bookselling.''

■Pearson Australia has bought REDGroup Retails' online business, including the Borders and Angus & Robertson websites.

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