{{short description|Australian book publisher}} {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2019}} {{Use Australian English|date=August 2019}} {{Infobox publisher | name = Sun Books | founded = 1965 | founders = Geoffrey Dutton<br />Max Harris<br /> Brain Stonier | status = Inactive | distribution = Australia | topics = Literature<br />History<br /> Cultural Studies<br />Politics<br /> etc. | genre = Literary fiction<br />Poetry |publications = Paperbacks | country = {{flagcountry|Australia}} }}

'''Sun Books''' was an Australian publisher of paperback books, founded in Melbourne in 1965 by Geoffrey Dutton, Max Harris and Brian Stonier. Sun's three founders were all former employees of Penguin Australia who, having grown frustrated by the latter's tepid interest in home-grown content, had resigned in order to establish the imprint, envisioned as a publisher of “quality paperbacks for the sophisticated Australian reader”,<ref name="auto">{{Cite web|url=https://recollection.com.au/collections/sun-books|title=Re:collection &#124; Sun Books|website=recollection.com.au}}</ref> and a platform for local literary talent.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.slv.vic.gov.au/melbournes-sun-books|title=Melbourne's Sun Books &#124; State Library Victoria|website=www.slv.vic.gov.au}}</ref> Prior to its acquisition by Macmillan in 1981, Sun had published over 330 titles, of which 187 were first editions.<ref name="auto"/>

Sun’s non-fiction collection was wide-ranging, encompassing politics, sport, the environment, travel, social justice, gender politics, aboriginal mythology, censorship, and homelessness. However, as evinced by the prominence in the catalogue of parochial satirists and cultural commentators like Donald Horne and Barry Humphries, this diversity was subsumed by a unifying (and self-consciously indigenous) cultural agenda, as summarised by John Arnold in commentary accompanying a 2005 Monash University retrospective: <blockquote>The Menzies era was coming to an end, and there was a questioning of established values… Sun Books was both a product of, and a contributing player, to the sixties movement to change and reform Australian society.”<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20170921113547/http://www.monash.edu/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/159751/full-catalogue-sunbooks.pdf Sun Books: An exhibition of Sun Books publications from the Monash University Library Rare Books Collection: 1 June 2005 - 31 August 2005], monash.edu. Retrieved 27 August 2023.</ref> </blockquote>Among Sun’s most successful original non-fiction first editions was Geoffrey Blainey’s classic interpretive history of colonial Australia, ''The Tyranny of Distance''<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://insidestory.org.au/distance-and-destiny/|title=Distance and destiny|date=28 July 2016|website=Inside Story}}</ref> first published by Sun in 1966, and still in publication by 2001 <ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.panmacmillan.com.au/9780732911171|title=The Tyranny of Distance - Pan Macmillan AU|website=Pan Macmillan Australia}}</ref>

Sun’s literary ventures included the acquisition (and subsequent repeated reissue) of Thomas Keneally’s Miles Franklin Award-winning ''Bring Larks and Heroes'', Christina Stead’s ''House of All Nations'', as well as Australian verse, including works by Judith Wright, and the transgressive ''Drug Poems'' of Michael Dransfield.

A selection of Sun’s epochal cover designs (including those by Brian Sandgrove, who also adapted the publisher’s colophon from Lawrence Daws’ reproduction of a cave painting of the Wandjina) are preserved and curated online by the Australian Book Designers Association,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://abda.com.au/2017/06/19/recollection-sun-books/|title=Re:collection and Sun Books|date=19 June 2017|website=Australian Book Designers Association}}</ref> and in print in ''Paperback Pioneers: Sun Books 1965–8'' by Dominic Hostede.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/246259495|title=Paperback pioneers : Sun Books (1965-81)|author1=Dominic Hofstede|author2=Warren Taylor|others=Brian Sadgrove (artist)|date=27 November 2017|publisher=[Melbourne] : [Re:collection]|via=Trove}}</ref>

== Book series == * Sun Academy Series<ref>[https://www.publishinghistory.com/sun-academy-series.html Sun Academy Series (Sun Books) - Book Series List], publishinghistory.com. Retrieved 22 August 2023.</ref> * Sun Books Australian Crime Fiction Series<ref>[https://www.worldcat.org/title/23669790?oclcNum=23669790 The Interrupted Man], worldcat.org. Retrieved 27 August 2023.</ref> * Sun Cookery Series<ref>[https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=se%3ASun%20cookery%20series se:Sun Cookery Series], worldcat.org. Retrieved 27 August 2023.</ref> * Sun Poetry Series<ref>[https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=se%3ASun+poetry+series se:Sun Poetry Series], worldcat.org. Retrieved 27 August 2023.</ref> * Three Colonial Poets<ref>[https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=se%3AThree%20colonial%20poets se:Three Colonial Poets], worldcat.org. Retrieved 27 August 2023.</ref>

== References == <!-- Inline citations added to your article will automatically display here. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:REFB for instructions on how to add citations. --> {{reflist}}

Category:Book publishing companies of Australia Category:Australian companies established in 1965