‘Boy Swallows Universe’ and ‘The Barefoot Investor’ top Australian charts
Thursday, 12 September 2019
While the two titles at the top of the Australian fiction and nonfiction bestsellers charts continue their impressive runs, elsewhere in the top 10 there are plenty of new titles....
Almost a Mirror
Thursday, 12 September 2019
Like fireflies to light, Mona and Danny are drawn to the glamour of the Crystal Ballroom and the post-punk music scene of 1980s Melbourne, and into the orbit of musicians...
My Name is Revenge
Thursday, 12 September 2019
On 17 December 1980, two men shot the Turkish consul-general to Sydney and his bodyguard near the consul’s home in Vaucluse. The assassins aimed, fired and vanished. From the assassination...
Australian women crime writers feted
Thursday, 12 September 2019
Australia’s two premier awards for crime writing were presented this month, and three women bagged prizes at each: Dervla McTiernan for her debut novel The Ruin (HarperCollins), Jane Harper for...
Parallax: A novel
Thursday, 12 September 2019
Robin Morgan’s most radiant prose, spare but sensuous, welcomes you into her dazzling imagination. This is a story about storytelling—a set of shorter tales which, like Russian dolls, nest and...
Multiple wins for McTiernan, Harper and Lee
Thursday, 12 September 2019
Australian women crime writers have cleaned up at the Ned Kelly Awards for Australian crime writing and—predictably—the Davitt Awards for crime books by Australian women. The multiple winners were Dervla...
The Tiny Star (Mem Fox, illus by Freya Blackwood, Puffin)
Thursday, 5 September 2019
Individually, a new book by either Mem Fox or Freya Blackwood, both award-winners and bestselling children’s book creators, would be welcomed by their readers. This book combines the two, with...
Invisible Boys (Holden Sheppard, Fremantle Press)
Thursday, 5 September 2019
In the coastal town of Geraldton, several young men struggle with the restrictions placed on them by culture, parental expectations and peer pressure. With the threat of violence a constant,...
My Folks Grew Up in the ’80s (Robin Feiner, illus by Beck Feiner, ABC Books)
Thursday, 5 September 2019
From the first glance of this picture book, those of us (particularly Generation Xers) who grew up in the 80s know we’re in for a treat. There, on the cover,...
The Lost Stone of SkyCity (H M Waugh, Fremantle Press)
Thursday, 5 September 2019
When the princess of the terrifying, fabled Ice-People kidnaps Danam, claiming him as her prophesied protector, his friend Sunaya knows she’s the only one who can rescue him. But it’s...
Antarctica
Wednesday, 4 September 2019
Antarctica—an icy desert with mountain ranges and sleeping volcanoes, home to the spinning end of the earth and to a diverse array of quirky creatures. Award-winning artist Moira Court brings...
Act of Grace (Anna Krien, Black Inc.)
Thursday, 29 August 2019
Anna Krien’s debut novel is an ambitious and compelling study of trauma and how it’s transferred and inherited, told through the points of view of four disparate but interconnected characters....
Womerah Lane: Lives and landscapes (Tom Carment, Giramondo)
Thursday, 29 August 2019
Tom Carment’s Womerah Lane is a lively and pensive personal history, chronicling 30 years of life and art from one of Australia’s most well-known landscape artists. Taking an episodic, essayistic...
Her Kind of Luck (Michelle Balogh, Brio)
Thursday, 29 August 2019
When Michelle Balogh’s great-grandmother Shan-Yi dies, Balogh moves into her apartment temporarily. Struggling with depression, the opportunity to live in the luxurious Sydney home provides a welcome change, but it...
Wearing Paper Dresses (Anne Brinsden, Macmillan)
Thursday, 29 August 2019
Life is tough in the Mallee in the 1950s, and when city sophisticate Elise, brimming with artistic and musical talent, is uprooted with her young children to her father-in-law’s wheat...
Berbay to expand publishing program
Thursday, 22 August 2019
Melbourne-based children’s publisher Berbay Books has announced it will double its publishing list from eight to 16 titles in 2020. After a few years of ‘significant’ sales growth of its...
CBCA winners announced
Thursday, 22 August 2019
The winners of the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book of the Year Awards have been announced. The winning titles are: Older readers: Between Us (Clare Atkins, Black Inc.)...
Wakefield sells debut YA novel to US
Thursday, 22 August 2019
Wakefield Press has sold world rights (ex ANZ) to Poppy Nwosu’s debut YA novel Making Friends with Alice Dyson to Walker Books US for a five-figure sum. The first book...
‘The Secret Runners of New York’ tops Australian YA bestsellers chart
Thursday, 22 August 2019
Matthew Reilly’s dystopian time-travel thriller The Secret Runners of New York leads the Australian YA bestsellers chart for July, unseating the film tie-in edition of Colin Thiele’s classic children’s book...
‘Boy Swallows Universe’ and ‘The Barefoot Investor’ top Australian charts
Thursday, 15 August 2019
Australian fiction bestsellers: July There are 10 new entries across the Australian fiction and nonfiction bestsellers charts in July. In fiction, it’s all about the thriller: Petronella McGovern’s debut suburban...
‘Axiomatic’ sold to UK’s Fitzcarraldo Editions
Friday, 9 August 2019
Small press Brow Books has sold UK and Commonwealth rights (ex ANZ) to Maria Tumarkin’s Axiomatic—‘a boundary-shifting fusion of thinking, storytelling, reportage and meditation’—to independent publisher Fitzcarraldo Editions. The deal follows the...
Melbourne Writers Festival interrogates love
Friday, 9 August 2019
‘When We Talk About Love’ is the heart-interrogating theme of this year’s Melbourne Writers Festival, which runs from 30 August to 8 September, with sessions that explore ‘our love for people,...
‘Too Much Lip’ wins Miles Franklin Literary Award
Friday, 9 August 2019
Melissa Lucashenko has won the Miles Franklin Literary Award for her darkly funny novel Too Much Lip (UQP), about a woman who returns to her hometown after an armed robbery...
There Was Still Love (Favel Parrett, Hachette)
Tuesday, 6 August 2019
Favel Parrett’s third novel, There Was Still Love, is a meticulously observed and masterfully crafted immigrant story about a displaced Czech family. The novel oscillates in nearly every way—between the...
Summer Time (Hilary Bell, illus by Antonia Pesenti, NewSouth)
Thursday, 1 August 2019
Summer Time, Hilary Bell and Antonia Pesenti’s third picture book collaboration, explores ideas of time within the grand nostalgic mythology of Australian summer. On each double-page spread, a chapter-like stanza...
The Man in the Water (David Burton, UQP)
Thursday, 1 August 2019
Four years after his award-winning YA memoir How to be Happy, David Burton returns with The Man in the Water, a coming-of-age mystery novel with an undercurrent of grief and...
Angel Mage (Garth Nix, A&U)
Thursday, 1 August 2019
Recently in fantasy there has been a move away from medieval Europe settings. One of the most popular examples of this is the 17th-century-Europe-inspired ‘Flintlock Fantasy’, though it owes as...
All of the Factors of Why I Love Tractors (Davina Bell, illus by Jenny Løvlie, Little Hare)
Thursday, 1 August 2019
A little boy called Frankie, accompanied by his mother, visits the library and borrows his favourite book about tractors. He is already well versed in all the characteristics and functions...
The Glimme (Emily Rodda, illus by Marc McBride, Scholastic)
Thursday, 1 August 2019
The Glimme starts in a perfectly ordinary and dull fishing village with a boy called Finn sketching dragons and monsters. But it’s not long before Finn is standing in front...
The Woman Who Cracked the Anxiety Code: The extraordinary life of Dr Claire Weekes (Judith Hoare, Scribe)
Thursday, 25 July 2019
Australian doctor Claire Weekes found worldwide fame with her bestselling books on ‘nervous illness’ in the 1960s and 1970s—but despite gratitude from thousands of sufferers, she is almost forgotten today....
