Oz book sales forecast to grow 4%, Booktopia to list on ASX, latest awards

According to a new report, Australia’s overall book sales in the 2021 financial year will be up 4% on the previous year. The report, from consultants Frost & Sullivan, was commissioned by Booktopia as the online retailer plans to list on the ASX in December.

In Victoria, libraries will celebrate Australian Reading Hour with an exclusive reading from Rosalie Ham’s The Dressmaker’s Secret. The program for this year’s online-only Wollongong Writers Festival has also been announced.

Six Australian authors, illustrators and organisations are among the candidates for the world’s richest prize for children’s literature, the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. Elizabeth Tan has won this year’s Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction, while the winners of the Danger Prize, the Victorian Premier’s History Awards and New Zealand’s Ngaio Marsh Awards for crime writing have also been announced, as has the shortlist for the inaugural Historical Novel Prize. Meanwhile, Jock Serong has been shortlisted for the UK’s Staunch Book Prize.

French bookshops have re-entered lockdown amid surging Covid-19 cases, ahead of a similar announcement for UK shops. Meanwhile, Bookshop.org made £65,000 in sales on its UK launch day.

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Category: This week’s news