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Dalton, Pape, Bluey top Australian bestsellers YTD

Trent Dalton’s 2018 debut novel Boy Swallows Universe has topped the Nielsen BookScan’s Australian fiction chart for the year to date, having sold more than 80,000 copies in 2020. Literary, historical and crime fiction are all represented in the top 10, including a number of bestsellers from 2019 or earlier—indeed, only two of the top 10 titles were released this year, Pip William’s debut novel The Dictionary of Lost Words and Dervla McTiernan’s crime fiction The Good Turn.

In nonfiction, Scott Pape’s 2016 guide to household finance The Barefoot Investor is the highest selling title for the first eight months of the year after three consecutive years at the top of the chart. This year it has already sold over 90,000 copies. The top 10 also includes three timely titles that explore resilience: Phosphorescence by Julia Baird, The Resilience Project by Hugh van Cuylenburg and The Happiest Man on Earth by Eddie Jaku.

In children’s books, it’s all about Bluey, with the popular children’s television series making a hugely successful leap into print (the top title alone, Bluey: Big Backyard, has sold over 150,000 copies this year). Also appearing in the top 20 are junior fiction series from Aaron Blabey (‘The Bad Guys’), Anh Do (‘Wolf Girl’ and ‘Ninja Kid’) and Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton (‘Treehouse’).

Australian fiction bestsellers 2020 YTD

  1. Boy Swallows Universe (Trent Dalton, Fourth Estate)
  2. The Dictionary of Lost Words (Pip Williams, Affirm Press)
  3. The Tattooist of Auschwitz (Heather Morris, Echo)
  4. The Good Turn (Dervla McTiernan, HarperCollins)
  5. Cilka’s Journey (Heather Morris, Echo)
  6. The Nowhere Child (Christian White, Affirm Press)
  7. The Yield (Tara June Winch, Hamish Hamilton)
  8. The Ruin (Dervla McTiernan, HarperCollins)
  9. The Weekend (Charlotte Wood, Allen & Unwin)
  10. Bruny (Heather Rose, Allen & Unwin)

Australian nonfiction bestsellers 2020 YTD

  1. The Barefoot Investor (Scott Pape, Wiley)
  2. Phosphorescence (Julia Baird, HarperCollins)
  3. Dark Emu (Bruce Pascoe, Magabala)
  4. A Bigger Picture (Malcolm Turnbull, Hardie Grant Books)
  5. The Resilience Project (Hugh van Cuylenburg, Penguin)
  6. Kitty Flanagan’s 488 Rules for Life (Kitty Flanagan, Allen & Unwin)
  7. The Pie Maker (Australian Women’s Weekly Cookbooks)
  8. 4 Ingredients Keto (Kim McCosker, 4 Ingredients)
  9. The Happiest Man on Earth (Eddie Jaku, Macmillan)
  10. Women and Leadership (Julia Gillard & Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Vintage)

Australian children’s/YA bestsellers 2020 YTD

  1. Bluey: Big Backyard (Puffin)
  2. Bluey: Time to Play! (Puffin)
  3. Bluey: The Beach (Puffin)
  4. Bluey: The Creek (Puffin)
  5. Bluey: Bob Bilby (Puffin)
  6. Bluey: Fruit Bat (Puffin)
  7. Bluey: Easter Fun! (Puffin)
  8. Bluey: All About Bluey (Puffin)
  9. Bad Guys Episode 11: The Dawn of the Underlord (Aaron Blabey, Scholastic)
  10. WeirDo #14: Vote Weirdo (Anh Do, Scholastic)
  11. Bluey: All About Bingo: A Shaped Board Book (Bluey, Puffin)
  12. Bluey: My Dad is Awesome: By Bluey and Bingo (Bluey, Puffin)
  13. Wolf Girl #2: Great Escape (Anh Do, Allen & Unwin)
  14. Wolf Girl #3: Secret Cave (Anh Do, Allen & Unwin)
  15. Wolf Girl #1: Into the Wild (Anh Do, Allen & Unwin)
  16. Ninja Kid #5: Ninja Clones (Anh Do, Scholastic)
  17. The 117-Storey Treehouse (Andy Griffiths & Terry Denton, Pan)
  18. E-Boy #1:E-Boy (Anh Do, Allen & Unwin)
  19. The 13-Storey Treehouse (Andy Griffiths & Terry Denton, Pan)
  20. Ten Little Fingers & Ten Little Toes Board Book (Mem Fox & Helen Oxenbury, Puffin).

© Nielsen BookScan 2020
Period covered: 29 December 2019 to 29 August 2020
Data supplied by Nielsen BookScan’s book sales monitoring system from 1000 retailers nationwide

 

Category: Think Australian bestsellers