Weekly sections | Books+Publishing

Inside the Australian and New Zealand book industry

Tuesday, 21 June 2022
When we first meet 37-year-old Nina Atkins, the protagonist of Peggy Frew’s Wildflowers, she’s going through a strange time: she’s packing all her possessions into boxes, stealing clothes from the...

Cautionary Tales for Excitable Girls (Anne Casey-Hardy, Scribner)

Tuesday, 21 June 2022
Office assistants team up to steal leftover food from corporate meetings; teenage girls deal with uninvited boys during a schoolies camping trip; children play under the sinister branches of a...

Desi Girl (Sarah Malik, UQP)

Tuesday, 21 June 2022
Desi Girl is a collection of memoir-style essays by Pakistani-Australian journalist Sarah Malik. The essays primarily chronicle Malik’s university years, taking the reader through pivotal moments during this time before...

The Accident (Katie McMahon, Echo)

Tuesday, 21 June 2022
In this second general fiction offering from the author of The Mistake, Katie McMahon provides a tangled web of 30- and 40-something characters, with overt crumbs leading to a trail...

Read the latest Publishers Weekly

Monday, 20 June 2022
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.

Rights round-up

Thursday, 16 June 2022
Sales Fiction Martin Shaw at Shaw Literary has sold US rights to Wall (Jen Craig) to Zerogram Press (see news). Children’s/YA Berbay Publishing has sold Spanish-language rights to Can You...

ABIA, ABA awards winners, Affirm to launch national sales team, Hughes apologises for plagiarism in ‘The Dogs’

Thursday, 16 June 2022
Affirm Press has announced the launch of its own national sales team which will be fully operational from January 2023, while the Australian Publishers Association (APA) has reported its members...

The Only Child (Kayte Nunn, Hachette)

Wednesday, 15 June 2022
The Only Child is historical fiction-cum-murder mystery by Kayte Nunn. The novel follows two timelines and the reader is tasked with piecing together the connection between them. In the first...

A Little Spark (Barry Jonsberg, A&U)

Wednesday, 15 June 2022
A Little Spark is the latest middle-grade novel from author Barry Jonsberg. Known for his novels My Life as an Alphabet and A Song Only I Can Hear, Jonsberg again...

This Devastating Fever (Sophie Cunningham, Ultimo)

Wednesday, 15 June 2022
Alice Fox has been struggling for years with her novel. Her agent, Sarah, has misgivings. Does anyone really want to read about Virginia Woolf’s husband, Leonard Woolf? Alice claims that...

Our Dreaming (Kirli Saunders, illus by Dub Leffler, Scholastic)

Wednesday, 15 June 2022
This isn’t the first time that Gunai writer, poet and activist Kirli Saunders and Bigambul illustrator Dub Leffler have created something incredible together. It’s no surprise after the success of...

The Cast Aways of Harewood Hall (Karen Herbert, Fremantle Press)

Wednesday, 15 June 2022
On the picturesque grounds of Harewood Hall, a retirement village in Perth’s western suburbs, something is afoot. Actually, a variety of things are afoot, and the residents of Harewood Hall...

The Book of Wondrous Possibilities (Deborah Abela, Puffin)

Wednesday, 15 June 2022
The Book of Wondrous Possibilities starts with a bang and doesn’t let up. Arlo lives a quiet life with his uncle and pet mouse Herbert above their bookshop, until the...

Growing in to Autism (Sandra Thom-Jones, MUP)

Wednesday, 15 June 2022
Sandra Thom-Jones had a successful life before she knew she had autism. Or, more specifically, before she had a diagnosis of autism. A well-respected researcher in her 50s, Thom-Jones knew...

Nimblefoot (Robert Drewe, Hamish Hamilton)

Wednesday, 15 June 2022
In Nimblefoot, Robert Drewe imagines the second act in the life of Australian historical figure Johnny Day, an international star in the 19th-century sport of pedestrianism at age 10 and...

Read the latest Publishers Weekly

Tuesday, 14 June 2022
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.

Rights round-up

Wednesday, 8 June 2022
Sales Nonfiction Black Inc. has sold simplified Chinese rights to The Big Four: The curious past and perilous future of the global accounting monopoly (Stuart Kells & Ian Gow); Hungarian rights to Koala:...

ABDA 2022 winners, ALS Gold Medal shortlist, KYD announces anthology contributors

Wednesday, 8 June 2022
In news from the past week, the winners of this year’s Australian Book Design Awards have been announced, along with the shortlists for the 2022 NZ Book Awards for Children...

Mr Carver’s Whale (Lyn Hughes, Fourth Estate)

Tuesday, 7 June 2022
On the volcanic island of Pico in the Azores, a young and crippled Antonio Mateus João Carvalho Cabral is delivered a sea chest of books. Among the many books he...

Ninni Yabini (Cheryl Kickett-Tucker, illus by Tyrown Waigana, Fremantle Press)

Tuesday, 7 June 2022
Ninni Yabini is a new picture book collaboration between author, research academic and community development practitioner Cheryl Kickett-Tucker and multidisciplinary artist and graphic designer Tyrown Waigana. A celebration of family...