‘Lifel1ke’ wins best sci-fi novel at Aurealis Awards
Thursday, 16 May 2019
Jay Kristoff’s YA novel Lifel1k3 (Allen & Unwin)—which is pitched as Romeo and Juliet meets Mad Max meets X-Men—has been named best science-fiction novel at the Aurealis Awards for science-fiction, fantasy and...
A closer look at Australian children’s nonfiction
Thursday, 16 May 2019
In this issue of Think Australian Junior we take a closer look at the bestselling Australian children’s nonfiction with a new children’s/YA nonfiction chart (adding to the monthly rotation of Australian...
Sophie Beer board books sold to the US
Thursday, 16 May 2019
Hardie Grant Egmont has sold North American rights to two board books by illustrator Sophie Beer to Penguin imprint Dial Books. Beer’s Love Makes a Family and its forthcoming companion...
Australian book industry celebrates
Tuesday, 7 May 2019
The red carpet was rolled out in Sydney last week for the Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs), which celebrate the best in Australian writing, publishing and bookselling. Pan Macmillan Australia...
Pantera Press sells 10 books in ‘Rowland Sinclair Mysteries’ to the UK
Tuesday, 7 May 2019
Pantera Press has sold UK and Commonwealth rights (excluding ANZ and Canada) to the first 10 books in the award-winning ‘Rowland Sinclair Mysteries’ series by Sulari Gentill to independent UK...
‘Boy Swallows Universe’ wins book of the year at ABIAs
Tuesday, 7 May 2019
Trent Dalton’s multi-award-winning debut novel Boy Swallows Universe (Fourth Estate) has been named Book of the Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs). Dalton’s coming-of-age tale, set against the...
‘Boy Swallows Universe’ and ‘The Barefoot Investor’ top Australian charts
Tuesday, 7 May 2019
A new paperback edition of Trent Dalton’s multi-award-winning novel Boy Swallows Universe is at the top of the Australian fiction bestsellers chart for April. Three new releases have also debuted...
Fox & Bird (Edwina Wyatt, illus by Alice Lindstrom, Little Hare)
Thursday, 2 May 2019
Edwina Wyatt’s picture book is about testing the bonds of new friendship. Fox’s loneliness lends him to do strange things. He tries to befriend a bird but she has a...
One Careless Night (Christina Booth, Black Dog)
Thursday, 2 May 2019
Christina Booth is an award-winning author and illustrator who has previously collaborated with well-known Australian authors such as Colin Thiele and Jackie French. In One Careless Night, Booth recreates the...
So She Did: The Story of May Wirth (Simi Genziuk, illus by Renée Treml, Affirm)
Thursday, 2 May 2019
Born in Bundaberg in 1984, May Wirth showed an unusual knack for acrobatics at an early age. So much so that she was adopted by an equestrienne from the famous...
Cheeky Dogs: To Lake Nash and Back (Dion Beasley & Johanna Bell, A&U)
Thursday, 2 May 2019
Dion Beasley’s illustrated memoir details his early life moving between a couple of remote communities in the Northern Territory before settling at Tennant Creek. Both profoundly deaf and suffering muscular...
My Book (Not Yours) (Ben Sanders, Lothian)
Thursday, 2 May 2019
This is the first in what is slated to be a series of picture books featuring Lento (a sloth) and Fox (a fox). It joins the growing trend of books...
Secrets of a Schoolyard Millionaire (Nat Amoore, Puffin)
Thursday, 2 May 2019
In her first children’s book, Nat Amoore has created such a likeable heroine in Tess Heckleton, entrepreneur and life advice-giver, that her unlikely adventures and somewhat unlikely personality are entirely...
Mindcull (K H Canobi, Ford Street)
Thursday, 2 May 2019
Eila, a rising social media star, is shortlisted to become the new face of Pearl, a virtual reality tech company. She is invited to spend three days in England trying...
Split: True Stories of Leaving, Loss, and New Beginnings (ed by Lee Kofman, Ventura)
Friday, 26 April 2019
Author and editor Lee Kofman sent a callout for personal essays about breaking up. The essays could be about any kind of separation: with people, objects, whatever. Split: True Stories...
The White Girl (Tony Birch, UQP)
Friday, 26 April 2019
Tony Birch’s latest novel tells the story of Odette Brown and her granddaughter Sissy, who live on the fringe of Deane, a fictional town situated between the mountains and the...
The Nancys (R W R McDonald, A&U)
Friday, 26 April 2019
In the poky New Zealand town of Riverstone—home of bad interior design, dull news cycles and not much else—11-year-old Tippy Chan’s mother is about to go on holiday. Tippy’s flamboyant...
The Electric Hotel (Dominic Smith, A&U)
Friday, 26 April 2019
Dominic Smith’s The Electric Hotel is a sensory delight, retelling the life story of a former film director—known as ‘the Frenchman behind the viewfinder’—with the rich vocabulary of cinema. Claude...
Allegra in Three Parts (Suzanne Daniel, Macmillan)
Friday, 26 April 2019
In this impressive debut novel, 11-year-old Allegra finds herself torn between the three adults in her life: her two grandmothers and her father. They live on adjoining blocks and adore...
Hardie Grant Egmont acquires pre-teen period guide
Thursday, 18 April 2019
Hardie Grant Egmont has acquired world rights to a guide for pre-teens about getting their period, written by journalist Yumi Stynes and Melissa Kang, the longest-serving expert behind the ‘Dolly...
‘Storm Boy’ tops Australian YA bestsellers chart
Thursday, 18 April 2019
A film adaptation of Colin Thiele’s classic children’s book Storm Boy—about a boy who rescues three pelican chicks after their mother is shot—has sent the title to the top of...
Kindness, environmental themes popular at Bologna
Thursday, 18 April 2019
Australian publishers have reported an ‘upbeat’ Bologna Children’s Book Fair, with middle-grade books continuing to dominate the market, and kindness and environmental themes emerging as new trends. Books with a...
CBCA awards shortlists announced
Thursday, 18 April 2019
The shortlists for the prestigious Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book of the Year Awards have been announced. Carly Nugent’s middle-grade novel The Peacock Detectives (Text) has won the...
‘Uplifting nonfiction’ in demand at LBF
Thursday, 11 April 2019
Australian publishers attending the 2019 London Book Fair have reported an interest in ‘uplifting or inspiring nonfiction’. Allen & Unwin rights manager Maggie Thompson said a big trend in narrative...
Get to know … Murdoch Books
Thursday, 11 April 2019
Think Australian interviewed publishing director Lou Johnson about Murdoch Books' rebranding and forthcoming titles. What makes Murdoch Books unique? A whole combination of things. The fact that we have such...
‘No Friend but the Mountains’ sells into nine territories
Thursday, 11 April 2019
Writer, journalist and Iranian refugee Behrouz Boochani’s award-winning memoir No Friend but the Mountains (Picador) has been sold in nine territories, including the US and the UK. Boochani, who is...
‘Nine Perfect Strangers’ and ‘The Barefoot Investor’ top Australian charts
Thursday, 11 April 2019
New paperback editions have propelled Liane Moriarty’s Nine Perfect Strangers to the top of the Australian fiction bestsellers chart in March and Tim Winton’s The Shepherd’s Hut into sixth place....
‘The Erratics’ wins Stella Prize
Thursday, 11 April 2019
Vicki Laveau-Harvie has won Australia’s prestigious Stella Prize for women writers for her memoir The Erratics (Fourth Estate), which tells the story of an estranged daughter who journeys home to...
My Culture and Me (Gregg Dreise, Puffin)
Thursday, 4 April 2019
This beautiful picture book presents the voice of an Indigenous child relating the importance of knowing and living your culture. Beginning with an expression of love for Country and family,...
Arthur and the Tiger (Sophie Beer, Puffin)
Thursday, 4 April 2019
Sophie Beer has a knack for creating books that simultaneously feel contemporary and vintage, which is sure to make them modern classics. In Arthur and the Tiger, Arthur is the son of...
