The Sapphires Fundraiser

I hope you’ll remember that at this time of year the Indigenous Literacy Project, of which Gleebooks is a great supporter, has its major fundraisers, centred around Indigenous Literacy Day (ILD) on Wednesday September 5th. That’s the day we hope many thousands of Australians will buy an extra book, participate in a bookswap or just make a donation through the ILF website

(indigenousliteracyfoundation.org.au) to help raise funds for literacy work the project supports through remote Indigenous communities.

As well as the focus on ILD, we’re proudly helping to sponsor a terrific fundraiser for which we’d love your support. On Wednesday August 8th, 6.00 for 6.30 pm at the Palace Cinema in Norton St, we’ve been given the chance to offer an exclusive preview screening of The Sapphires featuring Deborah Mailman and Jessica Mauboy. It looks and sounds great, and we’d love to have you at the preview. Tickets are $30.00 (no discounts, as it’s a fundraiser) and there’ll be lucky door prizes and raffles to add to the fun. Bookings are through Gleebooks.

Winter Sale August 10 to 26

August is the month for our (belated) winter sale. I don’t know how many of you have been coming to our sales upstairs at #49 over the years, but you really should check it/them out. From the opening night preview for Gleeclubbers on Friday August 10th, you can choose from thousands of really good books (plus DVDs, gift lines and greeting cards) at really cheap prices. It’s always a great sale (after all, it’s Gleebooks stock) but I know that what’s on offer this time around is particularly good stuff.

The opening day of the sale (Saturday August 11th) is National Bookshop Day, scheduled to remind everybody of what a resource we have in our bookshops. We’d love to think you already know that, but we’re celebrating National Bookshop day with lucky door prizes and fun lucky dips for the kids (with every purchase) in Glebe, Dulwich Hill and Blackheath. Please come and take part.

Over the next couple of weeks we’ll be seeing everything publishers have to offer for the rest of the year’s publishing schedule. I’ve a couple of tasty items on the bedside table already: Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver (November), and the marvellous new novel of Michelle De Kretser Questions of Travel (October), which I’m enjoying hugely. We’ll bring you morsels of as much as we can, next month.

Finally, I don’t usually mention individual members of Gleebooks staff in these columns, but in July, Stephen Reid clocked up twenty years of first-rate service at our second-hand bookshop at #191 Glebe Point Rd. His loyalty and dedication to his craft (need I say that bookselling is a craft to the best second-hand booksellers) is matched only by his prodigious book knowledge and willingness to share that knowledge with generosity and enthusiasm. Thank you, Stephen. David Gaunt