Monday, 4 December 2006
New Zealand authors Judith Binney, Patricia Grace and Vincent O'Sullivan are the winners of this year's New Zealand Prime Minister's Awards for Literary Achievement. The awards, worth $60,000 (A$49,800), recognise...

Monday, 4 December 2006
Oxford University Press has announced that Melinda O'Donnell, previously secondary publishing manager at Thomson Learning Australia, has joined the company as secondary director. O'Donnell is joined by Lee Walker, formerly...

Monday, 4 December 2006
Packer's Lunch, Neil Chenoweth's examination of the Australian power players of the '90s (Allen & Unwin), has won this year's Walkley Award for best nonfiction book. The award was presented...

Monday, 4 December 2006
Australia will be the Focus Country at the 2007 Kolkata (formerly ‘Calcutta') Book Fair.Eleven Australian authors will participate in events at the Kolkata fair, to be held from 31 January...

Monday, 4 December 2006
Unless otherwise indicated, businesses listed are not open on weekends or public holidays. Company Last day of business First day of business Allen & Unwin 1pm 22/12/06 2/1/07 Alliance Distribution...

Tuesday, 28 November 2006
In news from our Around the World blog this week: Ian Jack to step down as editor of editor of UK literary journal Granta; a new survey says most adults...

Tuesday, 28 November 2006
A pre-election proposal from the newly re-elected Labor state government in Victoria promises a $9 million package ‘to support writers, literary organisations and festivals' in a bid to have Melbourne...

Tuesday, 28 November 2006
The new State Library of Queensland building at Brisbane's South Bank was opened to the public on 25 November. The refurbished five-level building includes an ‘Infozone' with a wireless area,...

Tuesday, 28 November 2006
Limelight Press has announced that it will close at the end of 2006, after six years of operation. Jayne Denshire, who founded the press together with co-director Helen Bateman, said...

Tuesday, 28 November 2006
Literary agent Lyn Tranter has described as ‘gutless' the decision by Scholastic Australia to cancel publication of Army of the Pure by author John Dale. The children's book, commissioned by...

Tuesday, 28 November 2006
The eighth annual Australian Publishers and Authors Bookshow, held at the Leichhardt Town Hall in Sydney last weekend was ‘a great success', according to Irina Dunn, executive director of the...

Tuesday, 28 November 2006
Following last week's announcement that an investor group led by Ripplewood Holdings had agreed to acquire Reader's Digest, managing director of Reader's Digest Australia Paul Heath told WBN it was...

Tuesday, 28 November 2006
John Wiley & Sons was named Supplier of the Year at this year's annual Australian Campus Booksellers Association (ABCA) conference, held in Brisbane on 16 and 17 November. Pearson Education...

Tuesday, 28 November 2006
This week's bestselling title benefited from a little unexpected media attention. Schapelle Corby's memoir My Story raced to the top of the charts amid reports that the convicted drug smuggler...

Tuesday, 28 November 2006
Publishers/distributors are asked to advise WBN of their Christmas closing dates by 4 December. A full list will appear once only in WBN on 6 December, listing each company's last...

Tuesday, 28 November 2006
American novelist William Diehl, author of the bestselling legal thriller Primal Fear (Vintage), has died at the age of 81. Diehl began his writing career while serving as a juror.

Tuesday, 28 November 2006
Packer's Lunch by Neil Chenoweth (Allen & Unwin) and Asbestos House by Gideon Haigh (Scribe) are the two titles shortlisted for the 2006 Blake Dawson Waldron Prize for Business Literature.Now...

Tuesday, 28 November 2006
The annual general meeting of the Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) was held on the weekend of 18-19 November.‘Major successes of the last two years were the 2006 eighth...

Tuesday, 28 November 2006
The 2005-06 annual report of the Public Lending Right (PLR) scheme has been released, showing detailed figures on the recipients of over $7 million in funds from PLR and $10.4...

Tuesday, 28 November 2006
International publisher Parragon has announced the opening of its Australasian business, based in Melbourne and headed by Ian Ashmore. Ashmore, who formerly headed the publishing division of Funtastic, has been...

Thursday, 23 November 2006
If you haven't yet discovered all the useful new features of the online WBN, why not grab hold of a FREE copy of Weekly Book Newsletter for Dummies?Written by the...

Tuesday, 21 November 2006
It's a case of too many memoirs, too few titles. This week there are two books in the top 10 bestsellers that share the same title. Peter Cosgrove's My Story...

Tuesday, 21 November 2006
In news from our Around the World blog this week: a new audiobook device with built in player due in the UK in April; Howard Davies named chair of judges...

Tuesday, 21 November 2006
The 2007 Gourmand world cookbook awards will be held next year in Beijing from 4 April to 8 April. The five-day event includes cookbook exhibitions, conferences and masterclasses, with the...

Tuesday, 21 November 2006
A group of investors led by Ripplewood Holdings has agreed to acquire Reader's Digest (RDA), subject to shareholder approval, in a sale expected to close in the first quarter of...

Tuesday, 21 November 2006
As reported in last week's WBN, the Australia Council's literature board has announced a total of $2.1 million worth of grants to writers around Australia and a further $980,000 to...

Tuesday, 21 November 2006
As widely reported in the mainstream media, Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp media company owns HarperCollins, has announced the cancellation of plans to publish If I Did It, a book...