Indie Book Awards 2024 longlists announced

The longlists for the 2024 Indie Book Awards, presented by Leading Edge Books, have been announced.

The titles longlisted in each category are:

Fiction

• Lola in the Mirror (Trent Dalton, Fourth Estate)
• Restless Dolly Maunder (Kate Grenville, Text)
• The Seven (Chris Hammer, A&U)
• Edenglassie (Melissa Lucashenko, UQP)
• The Hummingbird Effect (Kate Mildenhall, Scribner)
• Homecoming (Kate Morton, A&U)
• God Forgets About the Poor (Peter Polites, Ultimo)
• Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect (Benjamin Stevenson, Michael Joseph)
• The Bookbinder of Jericho (Pip Williams, Affirm)
• Stone Yard Devotional (Charlotte Wood, A&U)

Nonfiction

• Bright Shining (Julia Baird, Fourth Estate)
• The Man Who Wasn’t There (Dan Box, Ultimo)
• Showing Up (Nedd Brockmann, S&S)
• The Last Charge of the Australian Light Horse (Peter FitzSimons, Hachette)
• Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s invisible life (Anna Funder, Hamish Hamilton)
• Best Wishes (Richard Glover, ABC Books)
• The Queen Is Dead (Stan Grant, Fourth Estate)
• The Remarkable Mrs Reibey (Grantlee Kieza, ABC Books)
• Killing for Country: A family story (David Marr, Black Inc.)
• Heartbake (Charlotte Ree, A&U)

Debut fiction

• The Collected Regrets of Clover (Mikki Brammer, Penguin)
• Fed to Red Birds (Rijn Collins, S&S)
• The House of Now and Then (Jo Dixon, HQ Fiction)
• Green Dot (Madeleine Gray, A&U)
• The Visitors (Jane Harrison, Fourth Estate)
• Duck à l’Orange for Breakfast (Karina May, Macmillan)
• Lenny Marks Gets Away with Murder (Kerryn Mayne, Bantam)
• At the Foot of the Cherry Tree (Alli Parker, HarperCollins)
• Salt River Road (Molly Schmidt, Fremantle)
• Things That Matter Most (Gabbie Stroud, A&U)

Illustrated nonfiction

• Paul Bangay (Paul Bangay, T&H)
• The Year I Met My Brain (Matilda Boseley, Penguin Life)
• The Milkwood Permaculture Living Handbook (Kirsten Bradley, Murdoch)
• The New Modernist House (Patricia Callan, T&H)
• The Bird Art of William T Cooper (Wendy Cooper, National Library of Australia)
• Bush Flowers (Cassandra Hamilton & Michael Pavlou, T&H)
• Getting to Know the Birds in Your Neighbourhood: A field guide (Darryl Jones, NewSouth)
• A Seat at My Table: Philoxenia (Kon Karapanagiotidis, Hardie Grant Books)
• Good Life Growing (Hannah Moloney, Affirm)
• Songs from the Kitchen Table (Archie Roach & Ruby Hunter, S&S)

Children’s

• If I Was a Horse (Sophie Blackall, Lothian)
• Australian Animals: From beach to bush (Brentos, Affirm)
• The Lonely Lighthouse of Elston-Fright: An Elston-Fright tale (Reece Carter, A&U Children’s)
• Walk with Us: Welcome to Our Country (Adam Goodes & Ellie Laing, illus by David Hardy, A&U Children’s)
• The 169-Storey Treehouse (Andy Griffiths & Terry Denton, Pan)
• Neil, the Amazing Sea Cucumber (Amelia McInerney, illus by Lucinda Gifford, Affirm)
• The Impossible Secret of Lillian Velvet (Jaclyn Moriarty, A&U Children’s)
• Silver Linings (Katrina Nannestad, ABC Books)
• Kimmi (Favel Parrett, Hachette)
• Millie Mak the Maker (Alice Pung, illus by Sher Rill Ng, HarperCollins)

Young adult

• Saltwater Boy (Bradley Christmas, Walker Books)
• Grace Notes (Karen Comer, Lothian)
• The Lorikeet Tree (Paul Jennings, A&U Children’s)
• Welcome to Sex (Melissa Kang & Yumi Stynes, Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing)
• The Isles of the Gods (Amie Kaufman, A&U Children’s)
• We Could Be Something (Will Kostakis, A&U Children’s)
• Some Shall Break (Ellie Marney, A&U Children’s)
• The Sinister Booksellers of Bath (Garth Nix, A&U Children’s)
• Stuck Up & Stupid (Angourie Rice & Kate Rice, Walker Books)
• Robert Runs (Mariah Sweetman, Magabala).

Shortlists will be announced on 17 January, with the category winners and the overall Book of the Year winner to be announced at a virtual event on 25 March. The 2023 Indie Book of the Year was Runt (Craig Silvey, A&U).

Category: Awards Local news