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Historical fiction debut tops the chart

8 March 2018   Books+Publishing
@booksandpublishing

The Tattooist of Auschwitz tops the fiction list for February. The novel is based on the true story of Lale Sokolov—the tattooist of the title—and his future wife, Gita Fuhrmannova, whom he met at the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau when both were imprisoned there. The book is based on the author Helen Morris’ interviews with Lale in Australia, where Lale and Gita settled after the war and lived for nearly 60 years. It was only after Gita’s death in 2003 that Lale met Morris and shared his story. Lale and Gita were ‘two ordinary people, living in an extraordinary time, deprived not only of their freedom but their dignity, their names and their identities’ writes Morris. Another debut, Kali Napier’s The Secrets at Ocean Edge (Hachette) in third. Napier’s historical fiction novel is set in 1932, and follows an Australian family that moves out West to make a new start during the Great Depression. Meanwhile, The Barefoot Investor (Scott Pape, John Wiley) continues to rule the nonfiction charts.

Australian fiction bestsellers: February

  1. The Tattooist of Auschwitz (Heather Morris, Echo Publishing)
  2. The Dry (Jane Harper, Pan Macmillan)
  3. The Secrets at Ocean’s Edge (Kali Napier, Hachette)
  4. Force of Nature (Jane Harper, Macmillan)
  5. Truly Madly Guilty (Liane Moriarty, Pan Macmillan)
  6. The Red Dirt Road (Alissa Callen, HQ)
  7. Big Little Lies (Liane Moriarty, Pan Macmillan)
  8. The Husband’s Secret (Liane Moriarty, Pan Macmillan)
  9. White Gum Creek (Nicole Hurley-Moore, Allen & Unwin)
  10. Sanctuary (Judy Nunn, William Heinemann)

Australian nonfiction bestsellers: February

  1. The Barefoot Investor (Scott Pape, John Wiley)
  2. Lunch Box (Pete Evans, Pan Macmillan)
  3. The Australian Healthy Hormone Diet (Michele Chevalley Hedge & Jennifer Fleming, Pan Macmillan)
  4. Unbreakable (Jelena Dokic, Ebury)
  5. Working Class Man (Jimmy Barnes, HarperCollins)
  6. Basics to Brilliance Kids (Donna Hay, HarperCollins)
  7. 30 Days 30 Ways to Overcome Anxiety (Bev Aisbett, HarperCollins)
  8. Maggie’s Recipe for Life (Maggie Beer & Ralph Martins, Simon & Schuster)
  9. The Trauma Cleaner (Sarah Krasnostein, Text Publishing)
  10. The Suitcase Baby (Tanya Bretherton, Hachette)     

© Nielsen BookScan 2018
Period covered: 28 January 2018 to 24 February 2018.
Data supplied by Nielsen BookScan’s book sales monitoring system from 1000 retailers nationwide

 

Category: Think Australian bestsellers