Support Sustainable Literacy with Dear Reader Books in Tyabb – Your Destination for Quality Pre-Read Books

Chat session 165 with Liz Dellaportas Dear Reader Books, Tyabb

🎧 Catch Up Link

Topic- Planet-Friendly Literacy Initiatives: Building a Better Future One Book at a Time

Monday 27th July 2026 1pm https://rppfm.com.au

Liz Dellaportas grew up on a steady diet of Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden and the Anne of Green Gables. It fed her imagination and allowed a very shy and socially awkward young girl escape into adventurous worlds where the children were full of confidence and entirely capable. Through books she climbed a tree to magic lands, broke all the rules at boarding school, went camping on an island with a dog called Timmy, solved countless mysteries, had her first crush on Julian, Jim and Ned, became a nurse, went on quests and managed to be home for dinner ready to help cook and clean up afterwards.

As well as bookish adventures, young Liz was also an active member of the Salvation Army. This was her church and social group, where she became a musician playing trumpet / cornet, and still worships there today, occasionally singing with the band.

A girl who was always going to be a teacher and writer, grew up to be an accountant, which kind of fit the socially awkward profile. At about the same time Debits and Credits were starting to make sense in high school, Liz met her husband Yanni through a shared interest in music and later dolphin research. She went on to university and spent three years working for a bank before deciding that living in the city was not everything and headed back to the Mornington Peninsula to start married life.

Working in a corporate environment taught Liz a lot about teams, early computer usage (yep, it was the 90’s and the world wide web was just in its infancy), and city life, but she realised that while it was all very glamorous, she missed working with “real” people and took up employment in a small accounting practice. Here, her clients were actual mum and dads, running their businesses, employing locals, and contributing to their communities.

After learning early that male bosses don’t appreciate working mums, Liz struck out on her own to run an accounting practice from home. In the early 2000’s when most small businesses were grappling with GST, Liz was able to raise their three children and enjoy the flexibility of attending school assemblies and after school activities, while continuing to grow the business and support her clients.

26 years later, and with the advent of cloud software like Xero that is user friendly and can be done on a smart phone, the accounting practice is still growing with a small but smart team of accountants and admin working with family businesses and individuals across a range of industries and occupations.

Liz has always stated that her “retirement plan” was to own a bookshop somewhere and spend her final days among classics, new releases and the smell of printed pages.

So, when the opportunity came up a couple of years ago to take up a small shop in the Tyabb Packing House Village and give it a go, she thought “Why Not?”. The kids had all left home pursuing their own lives, and she had considered further study but couldn’t decide between a business course, or something different.

Thankfully, Liz had the full support of her family in this venture. Because it came about 10 years before “retirement”.

As the Village is open Thursday to Sunday, her parents stepped in to run the shop on weekdays, so Liz could spend her weekends cleaning books, stacking them on shelves and having great conversations with customers. Her niece and daughter have also joined the team, and between the three generations, they know a thing or two about different authors and genres.

Liz says “Being a bookseller is almost completely the opposite to being an accountant. There are no deadlines. We can take the time to talk about things we love, stories we have read, taking recommendations from customers, and hunting down books they are seeking.”

Dear Reader Books sell second handbooks and take pride in the way they clean each book before it goes on a shelf. Finding a second, third or fifteenth life for a book is their way of contributing to sustainability. They accept every donation with gratitude, and if they can’t resell it, it gets used for craft or given away for free. Since moving across the playground to their larger shop a year ago, they have been able to introduce a small range of bookish giftware as well.

The danger they face is that they will run out of space and the universal fear that the bookshop is so crowded with books that it becomes overwhelming for visitors. This is something they are continuously working on and will hopefully achieve with constant re-organising and new signage around the store.

Once of their favourite spaces within the store is the Vintage Lounge. They picked up a beautiful floral lounge set and set it up with a bookshelf of vintage books and a gilded mirror that everyone refers to as “the fireplace”. Visitors are encouraged to use this space to sit in peace, flick through the pages of a book and hopefully consider their purchases.

The Children’s area is also a well visited space, with another couch for reading time, and a range of picture books, chapter books and children’s non-fiction to satisfy most family reading needs.

The team have many more plans to grow their community of readers, but while Liz continues to work full time in the accounting practice, these plans will wait.

They do run Book Bedazzling workshops and recently completed their first ever Charity Sale – donating proceeds from the weekend to the Salvation Army Red Shield Appeal.

All grown up, and with three adult children (only one of whom reads with a similar passion) Liz still reads all genres but mainly rotates between fantasy, crime and thrillers, and historical sagas. Her favourite authors now include Fiona McIntosh, Natasha Lester, Matthew Reilly, Robert Galbraith and Robin Hobb and she highly recommends them to anyone looking for something in those genres. She also has a growing collection of Anne of Green Gables editions.

Liz believes reading is so important to learn about the world, to learn empathy and to draw a circle around yourself for “me time”. She believes in the preservation of stories and older books and is so glad that she has been able to create a space that others can experience the same.

How do I feel looking in the Mirror?

Sometimes I catch the Liz I think I am – mature and happy and content with that. We have a saying about “sucking the marrow out of life” and I think we are currently doing just that. Sometimes I look a bit spread too thin, leaving no margin for error, but mostly I enjoy living day by day and book by book.

To find out more about Dear Reader Books,

visit  Love Your Book Shop and  Libro.FM Dear Reader Books or

follow on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. 

Drop by the Tyabb Packing House Village to explore the collection and discover how they’re giving preloved books a new chapter!

My hope is that when you’re looking at yourself in the

‘The Daily Mirror’

YOU SMILE

EMBRACE BEING YOU

AND FIND 10 MINUTES IN YOUR DAY TO NOURISH YOUR SOUL!

To get in touch with Cathy email smileinthedailymirror@gmail.com 

'The Daily Mirror' acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the Traditional Custodians of the land and acknowledges and pays respect to their Elders, past and present.