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Pantera acquires Sursok memoir 

Photograph of Tammin Sursok Wednesday, 17 April 2024
Pantera has acquired world rights to an as-yet-untitled memoir from Tammin Sursok. Among many other roles—including producing, directing, writing, music, media appearances, and entrepreneurship—Sursok is known as an actor who...

Rights round-up 

Photograph of Genevieve Gannon Wednesday, 17 April 2024
Sales Poetry Giramondo has sold Hasib Hourani’s debut poetry book, rock flight (September), about ‘the dispossession and occupation Palestinians are faced with on the ground and across the diaspora’, to New...

Vale Max Oliver

Photograph of Max Oliver holding a book Wednesday, 17 April 2024
Max Oliver, the founder of Lindfield Bookshop, which operated for 46 years until 2019, died on 4 April at the age of 81. From the Sydney Morning Herald: Much loved...

BookPeople 2024 Book of the Year shortlists announced

Book people logo Wednesday, 17 April 2024
BookPeople has announced the shortlists for its Book of the Year awards. The shortlists for each category are: Adult fiction Lola in the Mirror (Trent Dalton, Fourth Estate) Green Dot (Madeleine Gray,...

Read the latest Publishers Weekly 

Wednesday, 17 April 2024
Books+Publishing is partnering with US trade news magazine Publishers Weekly to provide our subscribers with exclusive access to the weekly digital edition of PW magazine. View the edition here.

Fragile Creatures (Khin Myint, Black Inc.) 

Tuesday, 16 April 2024
Debut author Khin Myin’s Fragile Creatures is a remarkable memoir in many ways. Myin’s writing is gracious and honest; at its core, his life story is devastatingly sad. The opening chapter reveals...

The Very Polite Knight (Ian Smith, Affirm) 

Tuesday, 16 April 2024
Finn is not like other knights in the kingdom. While Boris, Ethel and Walter are busy with scaring, fighting and stealing, Finn prefers gardening and reading. He is quiet, kind...

Looking for Eden (Caroline Overington, HarperCollins) 

Tuesday, 16 April 2024
The latest offering from award-winning journalist and bestselling author Caroline Overington is a lopsided thriller. The novel opens as finance hotshot Clare returns to small-town WA following the suicide of...

Queen of Dogs (Joe Weatherstone, Walker) 

Tuesday, 16 April 2024
Eleven-year-old Maddy feels like she doesn’t fit in at school or at home with her sporty family. She’d rather be hanging out with her dog, Gusto. When Gusto disappears, Maddy...

My Father’s Suitcase (Mary Garden, Justitia Books) 

Tuesday, 16 April 2024
Mary Garden’s My Father’s Suitcase, with its no-holds-barred tone, embodies the Anne Lamott epigraph, ‘If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better’. Readers of...

Shadows of Winter Robins (Louise Wolhuter, Ultimo) 

Tuesday, 16 April 2024
Louise Wolhuter’s second novel, Shadows of Winter Robins, is cinematic and engrossing from the get-go, spiked with suspense and twists aplenty. Wolhuter is clearly a writer in command of her...

black&write! Writing Fellowships shortlist announced 

Tuesday, 16 April 2024
The State Library of Queensland (SLQ) has announced the shortlist for this year’s black&write! Writing Fellowships. The six shortlisted writers are: Skye Cusack, for the young adult novel ‘The Dangers...

Ondaatje Prize 2024 longlist

Tuesday, 16 April 2024
The longlist for this year’s £10,000 (A$19,321) Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize has been announced. The longlisted titles are: The Britannias: An island quest (Alice Albinia, Allen Lane) Falling...

Affirm acquires Ferguson ‘feminist manifesto’ 

Tuesday, 16 April 2024
Affirm Press has acquired world rights to an as-yet-untitled second nonfiction book from Hannah Ferguson. Described by the publisher as a ‘no-bullshit, no-frills guide to your twenties’, Ferguson’s 'new feminist...

UQP acquires Bigna middle-grade verse novel 

Thursday, 11 April 2024
The University of Queensland Press (UQP) has acquired world rights to debut author Sandy Bigna’s middle-grade verse novel Little Bones, in a two-book deal via Danielle Binks of Jacinta di...

BookPeople Book of the Year longlists announced

Thursday, 11 April 2024
BookPeople has announced the longlists for its Book of the Year awards. The longlists for each category are: Adult fiction Lola in the Mirror (Trent Dalton, Fourth Estate) Green Dot...

PRH acquires Clark romantasy duology 

Thursday, 11 April 2024
Penguin Random House (PRH) Australia has acquired rights to a romantasy duology from Tasmanian debut author Sophie Clark, as part of a global PRH co-publishing deal with Knopf in the...

Catton shortlisted for 2024 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction

Cover of Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton Wednesday, 10 April 2024
Eleanor Catton has been shortlisted for the 2024 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, worth US$150,000 (A$226,245). The full list of shortlisted titles includes: Birnam Wood (Eleanor Catton, Granta) Daughter (Claudia...

Rights round-up 

Life Camera Action Wednesday, 10 April 2024
Sales Fiction Affirm Press has sold rights to Tilda Is Visible (Jane Tara) in the following territories: Italian rights to Feltrinelli, German rights to Diogenes, and North American rights to Penguin...

International Booker Prize 2024 shortlist announced

Photograph of the six books shortlisted for the 2024 International Booker Wednesday, 10 April 2024
The shortlist for the 2024 International Booker Prize, worth £50,000 (A$95,600), has been announced. The titles in the running for this year’s prize, chosen from a longlist of 13 announced...

Huia wins 2024 Bologna Prize, Oceania region

Wednesday, 10 April 2024
Huia Publishers, based in Aotearoa New Zealand, is the 2024 Oceania winner of the Bologna Prize (BOP) for the Best Children’s Publisher of the Year. The Māori-owned independent publisher has...

ILF wins Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award 2024

Wednesday, 10 April 2024
The Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF) has won the 2024 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA), worth five million Swedish kronor (A$710,000). The ILF was announced as the winner at a live...