Inside the Australian and New Zealand book industry

Image. Advertisement:

‘Love Stories’ wins 2022 Indie Book of the Year

Trent Dalton’s Love Stories (Fourth Estate) has been named Book of the Year at the 2022 Indie Book Awards.

The winning titles in each category are:

Fiction

  • Once There Were Wolves (Charlotte McConaghy, Hamish Hamilton)

Nonfiction

  • Love Stories (Trent Dalton, Fourth Estate)

Debut fiction

  • The Silent Listener (Lyn Yeowart, Viking)

Illustrated nonfiction

  • Still Life (Amber Creswell Bell, Thames & Hudson)

Children’s

  • Rabbit, Soldier, Angel, Thief (Katrina Nannestad, ABC Books)

Young adult

  • The Monster of Her Age (Danielle Binks, Lothian).

The winning titles were chosen by independent booksellers around the country, from shortlists announced in January. Each category winner receives $1000, while the book of the year winner receives an additional $1500.

Of his win, Dalton said: ‘I am thrilled and gobsmacked and humbled and deeply grateful. I got all cheeseball weepy when I got the news. I got all sentimental about this beautiful recognition because this book means so much to me and because Australia’s independent booksellers mean everything to the Australian book industry.

‘I sat on a corner for two months asking random strangers to tell me love stories but every passing day of every passing year our independent booksellers are sharing love stories with their incredible customers through that sacred transaction of buying and selling these paper treasures we call books. Thank you to the booksellers for this incredible award.’

Presented by Leading Edge Books, the Indie Book Awards ‘recognise and celebrate indie booksellers as the number one supporters of Australian authors’.

The winner of last year’s book of the year was Pip Williams for her debut novel The Dictionary of Lost Words (Affirm). For more information, see the awards website.

 

Category: Awards Local news