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Bestsellers this week: ‘The Meltdown: Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ takes out top spot

Monday, 19 November 2018
Number one on this week's bestsellers chart is The Meltdown (Puffin), book 13 in Jeff Kinney's ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ series, which has moved up from number two. Lee Child's...

Chapman wins HGE Ampersand Prize for YA novel ‘What it Takes’

Friday, 16 November 2018
Sydney-based journalist Frances Chapman has won Hardie Grant Egmont’s (HGE) Ampersand Prize for an unpublished manuscript for her ‘vibrant’ YA novel, What it Takes. Chosen from nearly 200 submissions, What...

‘Invisible Boys’ wins T A G Hungerford Award

Friday, 16 November 2018
Perth-based YA writer Holden Sheppard has won the 2018 City of Fremantle T A G Hungerford Award for an unpublished manuscript for Invisible Boys, a YA novel about a group...

ABA announces 2018 Vic, NSW reps of the year

Friday, 16 November 2018
Mandy Wildsmith from Hardie Grant Books has been named Victorian Rep of the Year by the Australian Booksellers Association (ABA), while Simon Rannard from Penguin Random House (PRH) has been...

National Book Award 2018 winners announced

Friday, 16 November 2018
The winners of the 2018 US National Book Awards have been announced. Sigrid Nunez has won the fiction award for her novel The Friend (Riverhead), which follows a woman who is...

Christmas predictions: Megan O’Brien from Brunswick Bound in Melbourne

Friday, 16 November 2018
In the lead-up to Christmas, the busiest time of year on the bookselling calendar, Books+Publishing is asking booksellers across the country to predict their biggest sellers and ‘surprise sellers’. In the this...

‘Chernobyl’ wins 2018 Baillie Gifford Prize for nonfiction

Friday, 16 November 2018
Ukrainian-American author and historian Serhii Plokhy has won the £30,000 (A$53,880) 2018 Baillie Gifford Prize for nonfiction for his book Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy (Allen Lane). Chosen from a shortlist of six,...

‘Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine’ wins BAMB Readers’ Choice Award

Friday, 16 November 2018
Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (HarperCollins) has won the Books are My Bag (BAMB) Readers’ Choice Award in the UK. Honeyman’s bestselling debut novel, which follows a socially...

Hachette Book Group reorganises divisions, dozens made redundant

Thursday, 15 November 2018
In the US, the Hachette Book Group (HBG) has reorganised its Hachette Books and Nashville divisions, resulting in a number of layoffs, reports Publishers Weekly. Under the reorganisation, Hachette Books...

Lester wins $60,000 Melbourne Prize for Literature; Tumarkin wins Best Writing Award

Thursday, 15 November 2018
Children's author and illustrator Alison Lester has won the 2018 Melbourne Prize for Literature, presented every three years to a Victorian author ‘whose body of published work has made an...

UWAP announces 2019 Dorothy Hewett Award shortlist

Thursday, 15 November 2018
UWA Publishing has announced the shortlist for the 2019 Dorothy Hewett Award for an unpublished manuscript. The shortlisted authors and their works are: Angela Rockel for ‘Rogue Intensities’, a memoir...

Robertson wins 2018 Goldsmiths Prize for ‘The Long Take’

Thursday, 15 November 2018
In the UK, Robin Robertson has won the £10,000 (A$17,970) 2018 Goldsmiths Prize for The Long Take (Picador). The prize, established in 2013, rewards British and Irish fiction which ‘breaks the...

Southeast Queensland libraries launch annual Christmas amnesty

Wednesday, 14 November 2018
Brisbane City Council has launched its ninth annual Christmas amnesty to encourage the return of over 75,000 missing items, including 12,000 missing books, across Brisbane’s 1.4 million-item library collection, reports...

Podcast spotlight: So You Want to Be a Writer

Wednesday, 14 November 2018
Established in 2014, So You Want to Be a Writer is made by the Australian Writers’ Centre (AWC) and co-hosted by author Allison Tait and AWC CEO Valerie Khoo. Each episode covers...

New Oran Park library wins 2018 Outstanding Community Project of the Year award

Wednesday, 14 November 2018
A new $14 million library and community resource centre at Oran Park Town, NSW, has received the Western Sydney Leadership Dialogue (the Dialogue) Outstanding Community Project of the Year award,...

Ventura sells ‘A Superior Spectre’ to the UK

Wednesday, 14 November 2018
Ventura Press has sold UK rights to Angela Meyer’s debut novel A Superior Spectre to Scottish publisher Saraband. Publisher Sara Hunt acquired rights at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair via UK-based agency Abner...

Book Aid International to donate £500k worth of books to Ghana libraries

Wednesday, 14 November 2018
UK charity Book Aid International has signed a partnership with the Ghana Library Authority (GhLA) to supply the country's public, school and special libraries with books, reports Ghanaian news outlet...

A&U sells ‘The Mummy Bloggers’ to UK, Europe, India in two-book deal

Wednesday, 14 November 2018
Allen & Unwin (A&U) has sold English-language rights in the UK, Europe and India to The Mummy Bloggers (Holly Wainwright) to Legend Press in a two-book deal. A Sydney-based journalist...

Please complete our reader survey

Wednesday, 14 November 2018
Books+Publishing is currently conducting a reader survey to help us improve our publications. The survey takes around 10 minutes to complete. To participate in the survey, click here. If you...

Leading Edge to hold 2019 conference in Adelaide

Wednesday, 14 November 2018
Leading Edge Books (LEB) will hold its annual conference on 17-19 March at the Hilton Adelaide in South Australia. With the theme ‘making connections’, the conference program will incorporate the...

Copyright Agency launches legal action against universities

Wednesday, 14 November 2018
The Copyright Agency has lodged action in the Copyright Tribunal against Universities Australia, the peak body representing universities, over the terms of the licensing agreement for distributing content. Universities Australia,...