Michelle Kadarusman recommends
Tuesday, 30 August 2022
I usually have a few books on the go, both children and adult reads. Two newer books that really stood out for me recently were Rainfish by Andrew Paterson (Text)...
Bookshop tour: Lamplight Books, Auckland
Tuesday, 30 August 2022
Auckland's Lamplight Books is a newly established independent bookshop with a special focus on architecture and design books. Recently celebrating its first birthday, the shop has quickly become a staple...
Employment in the Australian publishing industry in 2022
Wednesday, 24 August 2022
In July 2022 Books+Publishing (B+P) surveyed more than 300 people about their employment in the Australian book industry, following up on similar surveys in 2013 and 2018. This report focuses on the data...
Passion for poetry: Sales in the wake of ‘Dropbear’
Tuesday, 16 August 2022
With sales of nearly 15,000 copies to date, Evelyn Araluen's 2022 Stella Prize winner Dropbear has defied the stereotype of poetry as a traditionally niche and low-selling genre. In our...
Meg Foster recommends
Wednesday, 10 August 2022
Dropbear by Evelyn Araluen. It is a raw, evocative and powerful book of poetry that looks at Australia through a vivid and unvarnished lens. Many poems have First Nations’ perspectives...
Meg Foster on ‘Boundary Crossers’
Wednesday, 10 August 2022
Meg Foster is a historian of banditry, settler colonial and public history; her new book Boundary Crossers (NewSouth, November) explores the lives of four lesser-known Australian bushrangers. Described by reviewer...
Pitched at MIFF
Wednesday, 10 August 2022
Back in person at the Melbourne International Film Festival, the Books at MIFF event once again gave publishers and literary agents the opportunity to pitch books with screen potential. After...
Untapped no more: heritage literature back in print
Wednesday, 3 August 2022
Launched in November 2020, Untapped: The Australian Literary Heritage Project began as a collaboration between authors, libraries and researchers to bring out-of-print Australian books back into circulation as ebooks available...
WFH easier but more than half stressed, burnt out: Book industry survey 2022
Wednesday, 27 July 2022
In July 2022 Books+Publishing (B+P) surveyed over 300 people about their employment in the Australian book industry, following up on similar surveys in 2013 and 2018. This year, for the...
Meet ABA Children’s Bookseller of the Year Becky Lucas
Wednesday, 20 July 2022
Becky Lucas is the owner of Shakespeare's Bookshop in Blackwood, in the Adelaide foothills. Named 2022 ABA Children's Bookseller of the Year, Lucas has a passion for children's books and...
Bookshop tour: Scorpio Books, Christchurch
Wednesday, 20 July 2022
Established nearly 50 years ago, Scorpio Books is the biggest bookshop in the South Island of Aoteoroa New Zealand, and is considered an institution by many Christchurch locals. The well-loved...
Who is #BookTok-ing in Australia, and how
Wednesday, 13 July 2022
Around the world, publishers are attracting new readers and experiencing increased sales via the #BookTok hashtag on TikTok—but what about here? Jo Case looks at how Australian publishers, booksellers and...
Six key ingredients for BookTok success
Wednesday, 13 July 2022
With growth of #BookTok-recommended titles phenomenally outstripping the wider adult fiction market, publishers are keen to harness the platform and booksellers must keep an eye on what's trending. Jo Case...
Tracey Lien on ‘All That’s Left Unsaid’
Tuesday, 12 July 2022
Tracey Lien's debut novel All That's Left Unsaid (HQ Fiction, September) blends a murder-mystery with a 'raw and honest' exploration of the Vietnamese-Australian experience in the late 90s. Reviewer Anthea Yang, who...
Books yule love: 2022 Christmas children’s and young adult
Wednesday, 6 July 2022
Books+Publishing rounds up Australian publishers’ top local children’s and young adult titles releasing in time for Christmas 2022. Picture books Readers young and old will delight in a number of new...
Life after Trump: Political books now
Wednesday, 6 July 2022
While the Australian federal election (and the Morrison government) is now behind us and Trump titles no longer dominate the category, books that explain the world we inhabit are still...
Melanie La’Brooy on ‘The Wintrish Girl’
Tuesday, 5 July 2022
Melanie La'Brooy's The Wintrish Girl (UQP) is the first book in her 'Talismans of Fate' fantasy trilogy for middle-grade readers. Featuring magical creatures and new friendships, the book uses tropes...
Meet ABA Bookseller of the Year Melanie Peacock
Tuesday, 5 July 2022
Born and bred on Sydney’s north shore, winner of the 2022 Australian Booksellers Association Bookseller of the Year Melanie Peacock cannot walk past a bookshop without venturing in. Peacock started...
Melanie La’Brooy recommends
Tuesday, 5 July 2022
Somehow I made it through most of my life without ever reading a single book by Sir Terry Pratchett. It wasn’t until my teenage son became a Pratchett devotee and...
Books yule love: 2022 Christmas nonfiction
Wednesday, 29 June 2022
Books+Publishing rounds up Australian publishers’ top local adult nonfiction titles releasing in time for Christmas 2022. Memoir and biography Themes of joy, love and community run through two highly anticipated memoirs...
Tobias Madden recommends
Tuesday, 28 June 2022
A book I recently read and adored was Holden Sheppard’s upcoming YA novel The Brink (Text, August). On the surface, it’s a hard-hitting story about a group of school leavers...
Tobias Madden on ‘Take a Bow, Noah Mitchell’
Tuesday, 28 June 2022
Tobias Madden's Take a Bow, Noah Mitchell (Penguin, September) is a Ballarat-set coming-of-age rom-com that follows teens Eli and Noah as they bond online and navigate meeting in person. Featuring...
Books yule love: 2022 Christmas fiction
Wednesday, 22 June 2022
Books+Publishing rounds up Australian publishers’ top local adult fiction titles releasing in time for Christmas 2022. Book club picks Among the releases due in the second half of 2022 are several...
ABA conference 2022: diversity, sustainability discussed—in person
Thursday, 16 June 2022
This year the Australian Booksellers Association (ABA) conference was held in person for the first time since 2019, taking place 12–13 June at the Sheraton Grand Hyde Park in Sydney....
BookUp 2022: Greening and gatekeeping
Thursday, 16 June 2022
The second annual BookUp conference, presented by the Australian Publishers Association (APA), was held in Sydney on Thursday, 9 June. ‘At least 180 people engaged with the program this year,...
Sophie Cunningham recommends
Thursday, 16 June 2022
I’ve just finished Bedtime Story by Chloe Hooper (S&S). It’s a beautiful book, about the act of story telling and about the traumas that sometimes lie at the heart of...
Sophie Cunningham on ‘This Devastating Fever’
Wednesday, 15 June 2022
This Devastating Fever (Ultimo, September) is Sophie Cunningham's first novel in more than a decade. The novel interweaves the story of Leonard and Virginia Woolf and their friends in the Bloomsbury...
Open Book intern Bohdi Byles on cracking open the book industry
Wednesday, 8 June 2022
The Open Book: Australian Publishing Internship is a six-month internship program aimed to increase cultural diversity in the Australian publishing workforce. This year’s pilot program offered two paid placements, one...
Grace Heifetz: insights from the Open Book pilot program
Wednesday, 8 June 2022
The inaugural Open Book internship program received over 200 applications, with two successful applicants undertaking paid six-month internships this year, each with three different publishers and supported by an industry...
Meet the ABIA Rising Stars 2022: Mika Tabata
Wednesday, 8 June 2022
The Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) Rising Star of the Year is awarded to an emerging talent in Australian publishing who has spent less than 10 years in the industry....
