After more than two years attending rights fairs virtually, several Australian publishers will be attending the 2022 London Book Fair (LBF) in person next week.

‘We’re excited to attend LBF in person for the first time since 2020,’ Allen & Unwin (A&U) rights and international sales manager Sandra Buol told Think Australian. Buol will be attending alongside A&U publishing director Tom Gilliatt and Cate Paterson, who recently joined A&U to build up the new division Atlantic Books Australia.

Also attending LBF in person are Scribe publisher in chief Henry Rosenbloom, managing director Sarah Braybrooke and publisher Molly Slight, and Giramondo associate publisher Nick Tapper.

The Australian Publishers Association will not have a collective stand at this year’s fair, but you will find a range of titles from Australian authors on the Books From Australia website.

And read on for a look at the titles publishers are promoting at LBF in fiction and nonfiction, as well as round ups of some recent local fiction and nonfiction acquisitions, the latest Australian bestsellers and award winners, and a snapshot of what’s been happening in the Australian market over the course of 2021. We also get some recommended reads from Australian authors.

As previously, this issue of Think Australian is being distributed by Publishers Weekly and BookBrunch. Look out for future issues ahead of the Beijing and Frankfurt book fairs. For more information on Think Australian and to sign up directly, click here.

—The Books+Publishing team

Think Australian is produced by Books+Publishing with support from the Australian Publishers Association and the Australia Council for the Arts.

Australian publishing continues to ride a literary crime wave, with several local publishers bringing crime offerings to London.

‘We are delighted to share Benjamin Stevenson’s Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone,’ says Penguin Random House Australia (PRH) senior rights executive Jordan Meek. Described by the publisher as ‘Agatha Christie meets Knives Out meets Richard Osman in a thoroughly modern take on the classic crime genre,’ Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone has been optioned for screen adaptation by HBO partnered with Made Up Stories and Endeavor Content and sold in 21 territories including North America (HarperCollins—Mariner), the UK (Penguin Random House— Michael Joseph), Russia (Azbooka-Atticus), Germany (Ullstein), China (Penguin China), Estonia (Rahva Raamat), Greece (Psichogios), Portugal (LeYa), France (Sonatine), Italy (Feltrinelli), Hungary (Agave), Romania (Trei), Brazil (Intrinseca), Israel (Modan), Lithuania (Baltos Lankos) Ukraine (Vivat), Spain (Planeta), Catalan (Planeta), and Poland (Foskal).

Also optioned for film, in this case by First Option Pictures, is Kyle Perry’s debut crime novel The Bluffs, which has now sold in eight territories including Germany (Atrium Verlag), the Netherlands (HarperCollins Holland), Romania (Lebada Neagra), Estonia (Uhinenud), Czech Republic (Host), Russia (Arkadia) and Italy (Fauncci). Perry’s second novel The Deep has sold in three territories—Germany (Atrium Verlag), The Netherlands (HarperCollins Holland) and Estonia (Uhinenud). ‘We are eagerly anticipating his third novel to be published in October 2022, The Wild,’ says Meek.

At Western Australian independent Fremantle Press, CEO Jane Fraser believes crime writer Dave Warner is ‘grossly underestimated and underrepresented in other territories’. ‘His 2022 new release After the Flood will mean we have three books in his award-winning Dan Clements series to take to London Book Fair,’ says Fraser. ‘Warner is a screenwriter as well as a novelist and we believe the filmic quality of his writing, the exotic remote destinations and the empathy with which he approaches his characters is a winning combination that international audiences will love, given the chance.’

Fellow independent Scribe will be pitching The Newcomer by Laura Elizabeth Woollett, a crime novel set on a sleepy Pacific island, in which the author of 2018’s Beautiful Revolutionary ‘convincingly and devastatingly evokes the everyday misogyny of the world her characters inhabit’, according to Australian Book Review critic Jay Daniel Thompson. ‘Politics and fiction haven’t always been an easy combination, but they are here,’ he writes.

Also with a foot in both the literary and crime fiction camps is 2021 Penguin Literary Prize winner Denizen by James McKenzie Watson (July), ‘a gothic rural thriller exploring the simultaneous celebration of harsh country and stoic people’, according to the publisher. PRH publishing director Justin Ractliffe, one of the judges of the prize, describes Denizen as ‘a Venus flytrap of a book’. Fellow judge Simon McDonald says it is ‘a novel everyone will be talking about … equal parts gripping, devastating and gut-wrenching’ in its tackling of themes including fatherhood, mental illness and ‘the ruggedness of rural Australia—both its people and the landscape’.

Literary fiction

Another literary prize winner being pitched at LBF is Petrichor by Aisling Smith (Hachette), which won Hachette Australia’s 2020 Richell Prize for Emerging Writers. The judges said at the time that the novel  ‘announces an assured and evocative new Australian literary voice’. ‘Smith, using the disintegration of a marriage, explores powerful themes around communication, race, culture and family,’ the judges said. ‘Aisling’s writing is evocative and sophisticated, and the story is one all the judges want to read much more of.’

Cold Enough for Snow (Jessica Au), is another literary prize winner to look out for. Au’s novel about a mother and daughter on a trip to Tokyo, won the inaugural Novel Prize which includes simultaneous publication by Giramondo Publishing in Australia and New Zealand, Fitzcarraldo Editions in the UK and Ireland, and New Directions in North America. The three publishers ‘all admire the quality and sensitivity of Jessica’s voice. It’s wonderful to have an Australian writer—one with a strong international outlook—as the winner of the award’s first edition,’ says Giramondo associate publisher Nick Tapper.

Melbourne-based independent publisher Black Inc. will be sharing literary fiction from debut novelist Scott McCulloch. Basin (June), is ‘a dark and compelling work’ according to the publisher. ‘Echoing the modernist tradition, and written in an incendiary yet elliptical prose style, Basin maps the phenomenon of a civilisation being reborn—a hallucinatory elegy to the inter-zones of self and place.’

Other literary fiction titles being highlighted at LBF by Australian publishers include Alex Miller’s yet to be titled new novel, which Allen & Unwin rights and international sales manager Sandra Buol describes as ‘a tender and humorous exploration of what it means to age and grow old, and how this can change us in new ways’, and Hovering (Rhett Davis, Hachette), winner of the 2020 Victorian Premier’s Unpublished Manuscript Award. The publisher says Hovering ‘crosses genres, literary styles and conventions to create a powerful and kaleidoscopic story about three people struggling to find connection in a chaotic and impermanent world’.

Also look out for Peggy Frew’s upcoming novel Wildflowers (A&U), ‘a compassionate and surprisingly funny book about family and sisters and how we deal with the catastrophes life throws our way’, and The One and Only Dolly Jamieson by Lisa Ireland (PRH, January 2023), which ‘takes us from the Broadway glam of the 1960s to current day 80-year-old Dolly who insists she’s not homeless, she just doesn’t currently have a permanent abode’. ‘Dolly’s story jumps off the page, as does the friendship between Dolly and Jane and their shared past traumas and triumphs,’ says Meek.

Finally, Hachette will be highlighting Enclave (July), the forthcoming third novel from critically acclaimed Noongar writer and author of Terra Nullius Claire G Coleman. A book in the tradition of Margaret Atwood and Naomi Alderman that ‘explores a future of surveillance, disruption and segregation that echoes the horrors of a colonial past’, Enclave is ‘a powerful dystopian allegory that confronts the ugly realities of racism, homophobia, surveillance, greed and privilege and the self-destructive distortions that occur when we ignore our shared humanity’.

Of all the titles being pitched at LBF, perhap the most instantly recognisable as Australian is forthcoming nonfiction title Koala by biologist Danielle Clode (Black Inc., September), which promises ‘an immersive, entertaining journey into the hidden life of the koala’, which, despite their iconic status and celebrity, ‘remain something of a mystery’ says the publisher. ‘Often affectionate in captivity, they seek out human assistance when in need of water or care yet can also be fierce and belligerent. They are beloved worldwide and feature in popular children’s stories, but are also plagued by sexually transmitted diseases and maligned for a lack of intelligence.’ In Koala Clode combines scientific insight with award-winning storytelling to take readers ‘up into the trees’ with these Australian icons.

Also for animal lovers, Allen & Unwin (A&U) has the true story of an unlikely friendship between a woman and a dolphin, publishing in Australia this June. ‘I’m excited to take Melody Horrill’s A Dolphin Called Jock to London,’ says A&U rights and international sales manager Sandra Buol. ‘We have just sold North American rights, and I hope many more will be drawn to this compelling and heart-warming story of how a traumatised young woman found peace through her friendship with an injured dolphin.’ Buol adds: ‘I know everyone is keen to see material for Gwendoline Smith’s upcoming The Book of Feeling Blue, an enlightening book for anyone with depression, from the internationally bestselling author of The Book of Overthinking.’

Hachette is highlighting Betrayed: The incredible untold inside story of the two most unlikely drug-running grannies in Australian history (June), a relentlessly fascinating, sometimes hilarious and often jaw-dropping true story’ by a journalist who both reported on the drug grannies’ plight after their sentencing in early 1978, ‘but actively fought for their release’.

Scribe is offering Our Members Be Unlimited (Sam Wallman, June), a forthcoming book of comics that explores the history and effects of trade unionism. ‘With a dynamic and distinctive art style, and writing that’s both thoughtful and down to earth, Our Members Be Unlimited serves as an entry point for young people or those new to … notions of collective action, but also as an invigorating read to those already engaged in the struggle for better working conditions—and a better world,’ says the publisher.

In general nonfiction, Black Inc. also has Humanity’s Moment: A climate scientist’s case for hope (Joëlle Gergis, Black Inc., September), a personal call to action from an Australian IPCC author Gergis, who writes: ‘Acknowledging that the world as we know it is coming apart is an act of courage. If I live to look back at this troubled time, I want to say that I did all that I could, that I was on the right side of history. Ultimately, we all have the same choice to make—to step up and leave a legacy, or to ignore the call of history. It really is as simple as that.’ In Humanity’s Moment, Gergis takes readers through the science in the IPCC report and explains what it means for our future, while showing that the solutions we need to live sustainably already exist. Black Inc. says, ‘This book is a climate scientist’s guide to rekindling hope, and a call to action to restore our relationship with ourselves, each other and our planet.’

Biography and memoir

In November, Black Inc. is publishing The Successor (Paddy Manning), ‘the world’s first biography of Lachlan Murdoch’. Journalist Manning asks whether Rupert Murdoch’s dutiful son can hang onto the empire, or whether ‘the third generation of Murdoch moguls prove the last’. ‘Despite a life in the spotlight, Lachlan’s personality, politics and business acumen remain enigmatic,’ says Black Inc. ‘Is he the ultra-conservative ideologue media reports maintain, or a free-thinking libertarian, as some friends suggest? And as CEO of Fox News, what role did he play in the rise of Donald Trump and now in Trump’s push for re-election?’

A biography of a very different Australian, The Dancer by Evelyn Juers (Giramondo) is ‘a biography for Philippa Cullen’, in which the author of House of Exile and The Recluse, ‘portrays the life and background of a pioneering Australian dancer, who died in tragic circumstances at the age of twenty-five’. Giramondo is also highlighting Last Letter to a Reader by Gerald Murnane, in which the writer presents ‘reports’ on his own body of work, and the memoir How to Be Between by Bastian Fox Phelan, which details how the author ‘comes to terms with being non-binary, with having a body and a way of being in the world that eludes the definitions that people attempt to give them’, writes Books+Publishing reviewer David Little.

Also in memoir, Scribe has Holy Woman by Louise Omer, a ‘Pentecostal preacher and faithful wife’ whose marriage and beliefs crumble. As she reflects on her own past and changing beliefs, Omer visits Mexican basilicas, Swedish cathedrals, Bulgarian mountains, and Moroccan mosques. ‘Holy Woman combines travel writing, feminist theology, and confessional memoir to interrogate modern religion, and gives a raw and personal exploration of spiritual life under patriarchy,’ says the publisher.

After a pandemic-fuelled record year in 2020—during which sales of books in Australia grew 7.8% to A$1.25 billion (unit sales for the year were 67 million) according to Nielsen BookScan—in 2021, the Australian book market experienced more modest growth of only 2.5% in value to A$1.3 billion. (Nielsen reported book sales in 2021 fell 1% in volume compared to 2020, to 65.4 million units sold.)

The start of 2021 felt briefly like a return to ‘normal’ as the country’s Covid suppression strategy—in the form of widespread lockdowns and closed national and internal state borders—appeared to be working. Midway through the year, however, the Delta variant hit, resulting in severe lockdowns on Australia’s populous east coast. And while locked down Australian booksellers were able to continue selling online via ‘click and collect’ only, they reported that lockdown sales in 2021 were down compared to the first year of the pandemic.

In August, Nielsen reported that simultaneous lockdowns across several states had led to year-on-year declines in both the value and volume of print book sales—the week ending 17 July saw the print book market down 4% in value and 8% volume compared to the same period in 2020. Meanwhile, the following week saw a double-digit decline in value and volume compared to the same week in 2020. However, when booksellers in New South Wales were able to reopen their stores again to customers in October, sales bounced back—Australian book sales for the week ending 16 October 2021 broke the average BookScan weekly sales record for that time of year over the previous decade, in what was the second-biggest week of 2021 to date for unit sales.

As stores reopened, hopes were high for a strong Christmas, especially given the titles on offer from publishers, which most booksellers regarded as strong. However, pandemic-related supply issues in the lead-up, particularly in the eastern states, meant that despite Christmas sales essentially matching 2020’s bumper season, most of the 120 booksellers (54%) surveyed by Books+Publishing in our annual Christmas retail survey actually experienced a worse Christmas than they were expecting, with only 6% reporting it was ‘better than expected’ and the remaining 40% saying it was ‘close to expectations’. Almost every bookseller who responded to the 2021 survey mentioned being affected by supply chain issues to varying degrees. ‘It was very nerve-wracking with so many unknowns and things out of our control, so I was in a constant state of nervousness about Covid, staff and supply,’ said one Melbourne bookseller.

The story of high hopes being dashed by the reality of the Covid supply chain is best illustrated by booksellers’ responses regarding Christmas sales versus anticipated returns. While more than half (55%) said sales were up on the previous year and only 17% said sales were down (with 28% reporting sales were ‘about the same’ as Christmas 2020), a whopping 82% expected returns to be higher than the previous year, with 15% expecting ‘about the same’ and only 3% expecting their returns to be lower.

According to Nielsen, overall book sales in the final four weeks before Christmas 2021 were flat, slightly down in volume (-1.7%) but up very slightly in value (+0.6%) across all categories. In the four weeks to Christmas, Australian book retailers sold 10.3 million titles, down from 10.4 million in the same period of 2020, and with a value of $202 million, up from $200.9 million in 2020.

Manga drives growth; audio on the rise

The market’s ultimate overall growth in value in 2021 of 2.5% was driven by adult fiction, and most notably by manga sales, according to Nielsen. (Nielsen’s 2021 sales figures included 52 weeks of sales vs 53 weeks in 2020; however, percentage change figures are based on 52 weeks of sales in both years.) In contrast to the growth in adult fiction, the children’s category declined (-0.2%) on 2020 sales, while trade nonfiction grew by just 1.3%—driven by autobiographies and food and drink.

Within adult fiction, the science fiction and fantasy category grew 9% and Hachette in particular benefitted from film and television adaptations, including Dune (Frank Herbert) and The Witcher (Andrzej Sapkowski). However, it was the manga category that was the standout. According to Nielsen, the overall adult fiction category in 2021 grew by 6.9% compared with 2020, with manga up a massive 86%. Romance was also up significantly (+16%) off the back of fiction from BookTok-boosted authors, including ‘the big winner here’ Colleen Hoover, who is published in Australia by Simon & Schuster (S&S).

Not surprisingly, given its BookTok star authors and manga clients, S&S had a bumper year—the publisher’s core print business grew by 6% in 2021, while sales by its distribution clients grew by 81%, with manga publisher Viz Media leading the charge and almost doubling its sales. According to Nielsen, S&S recorded value growth of 24% in 2021 compared to the previous year, the highest growth rate among large publishers in Australia (with large being defined by Nielsen as those with turnover above $250,000).

Also unsurprising, given the growth in manga, was that Australian bookselling chain QBD Books launched a dedicated manga online shop in 2021: sales of manga from all publisher groups more than doubled in Australia both in volume and value compared to previous years, with 10 times the amount of manga being sold in Australia in 2021 compared to 2014. According to QBD Books, the retailer holds a 30% share of the Australian manga market.

While a new ebook sales tracking service launched by Nielsen in 2021 indicated that lockdowns the previous year prompted growth in ebook sales (with sales peaking during the first Covid lockdowns in April and up by over 26% on April 2019), anecdotally, ebook sales plateaued in 2021. S&S Australia reported its ebook sales locally had declined in line with the US, where the company reported a 9% drop in ebook revenue. However, audio ‘surged by 73%’ in Australia for S&S, and anecdotal evidence points to audio as a growth format through the pandemic.

Bestselling titles

The bestselling author of 2021 in Australia was J K Rowling, with $11.7 million sold across 417,000 units, according to Nielsen, while Australian children’s author Anh Do held onto the number-one spot on the local authors list, with $9.9 million from 955,000 units sold.

When it came to individual titles, local authors were extremely popular, with books by Australians taking out the top five places in Nielsen’s overall 2021 bestseller chart. Liane Moriarty topped the overall top 10 for 2021, with sales of almost 200,000 for her novel Apples Never Fall, released in September 2021. Memoir The Happiest Man on Earth by the late 100-year-old Holocaust survivor Eddie Jaku came in at number two with 126,500 copies sold, followed by the latest instalment in the popular ‘Treehouse’ children’s series, The 143-Storey Treehouse, which sold 108,970 copies for the year after its October 2021 release. Perennial bestsellers financial guide The Barefoot Investor (Scott Pape, 108,320 copies) and historical novel The Dictionary of Lost Words (Pip Williams, 92,880 copies), published in 2016 and 2020 respectively, rounded out the all-Australian top five.

Top 10 bestselling titles in Australia in 2021

1. Apples Never Fall (Liane Moriarty, Macmillan)
2. The Happiest Man on Earth (Eddie Jaku, Macmillan)
3. The 143-Storey Treehouse (Andy Griffiths & Terry Denton, Pan)
4. The Barefoot Investor (Scott Pape, Wiley)
5. The Dictionary of Lost Words (Pip Williams, Affirm)
6. Better Off Dead (Lee & Andrew Child, Bantam)
7. Where the Crawdads Sing (Delia Owens, Corsair)
8. The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse (Charlie Mackesy, Ebury)
9. Bluey: The Pool (Puffin)
10. Bluey: Big Backyard (Puffin).

© Nielsen BookScan 2022. Period covered: week ending 3 January 2021 to week ending 1 January 2022. Data supplied by Nielsen BookScan’s book sales monitoring system from 1000 retailers nationwide.

While Nielsen captured the overall bestsellers, the following titles were the ones most mentioned by booksellers in the Christmas survey as selling well over the Christmas period. Led by local writer Hannah Kent’s third novel Devotion, the list also includes the first book of nonfiction by popular Australian author Trent Dalton (Love Stories) and 2021 Booker Prize winner The Promise by South African writer Damon Galgut.

Booksellers’ most mentioned titles, Christmas 2021

1. Devotion (Hannah Kent, Picador)
2. Love Stories (Trent Dalton, HarperCollins)
3. Apples Never Fall (Liane Moriarty, Macmillan)
4. Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Shelf Love (Yotam Ottolenghi & Noor Murad, Ebury)
5. The Promise (Damon Galgut, Chatto & Windus)
6. Still Life (Sarah Winman, Fourth Estate)
7. The 143-Storey Treehouse (Andy Griffiths & Terry Denton, Macmillan)
8. Costa’s World (Costa Georgiadis, ABC Books)
9. Klara and the Sun (Kazuo Ishiguro, Faber)
10. The Happiest Man on Earth (Eddie Jaku, Macmillan).

Pandemic boosts online sales

‘The pandemic largely benefited online sales over bricks and mortar,’ said Jo Lewin of Booktopia, Australia’s largest online-only book retailer, which listed on the Australian stock exchange at the end of 2020. Booktopia’s results for the 2021 financial year bore this out—the company reported revenue growth of 35% for the financial year, with revenue of $223.9 million, up from $165.7 million in the 2020 financial year. This was on the back of 8.2 million units shipped, up 27% from 6.5 million; an average annual spend per customer of $126.85, up from $111.43; and an average order value of $71.07, up from $65.08.

The second half of 2021 was less rosy for the online retailer—Booktopia’s profits halved in the six months to 31 December compared to the same period last financial year, but this was despite a 15.5% revenue rise for the same period, indicating Australian book buyers still seemed to be purchasing record numbers of books online.

Indeed, the pandemic boon to online has not been ignored by bricks-and-mortar retailers either. With lockdowns sending customers online, Australian booksellers have reported that having an internet presence is a must. ‘Our online store was critical last year as we were in a lockdown area,’ one NSW bookseller told Books+Publishing in the Christmas survey. ‘We wouldn’t have a business without online sales over the last two years,’ concurred a specialist city bookseller. Of those booksellers surveyed, 70% of respondents sold books online for Christmas 2021 and of those 10% were selling online for the first time. However, online sales are still a modest portion of business for most booksellers, representing well below 10% of total sales for most independent bricks-and-mortar sellers.

Other notable developments in the Australian book landscape in 2021 included the establishment of Welbeck ANZ, an Australian and New Zealand subsidiary of the UK publisher established in partnership with Booktopia. Booktopia will invest $3 million to hold a 25% stake in Welbeck ANZ, with former Echo Publishing general manager Bernadette Agius as managing director of the local business. Booktopia also integrated independent publishing house Brio Books into its business in 2021.

Pictured: Bookselling chain Readings’ new Emporium store in Melbourne’s CBD, which opened in 2021.

Australian authors tell us the most recent book they have read and loved, and why.

 

Hayley Scrivenor is the author of forthcoming crime novel Dirt Town (Macmillan, May).

‘I was fortunate enough to see Larissa Behrendt speak at the 2021 BAD Sydney Crime Writers festival about her book After Story (UQP). I got the audiobook and loved it. The actresses who read the parts of Jasmine, a young Aboriginal lawyer, and Della, her mother, do a fantastic job. I re-read it in paperback and loved it even more. The novel looks at a crime in the past, where a young girl has gone missing, and its implications in a way that just leaves me in awe. It is an exploration of the long-reaching effects of a crime in a way I think is important for readers and writers of crime to engage with. I read for voice more than anything, and Behrendt gets the two women so right. There are insightful meditations on justice, race, shame and love, and it’s a touching story about mothers and daughters that features a literary tour of England. You simply can’t go wrong!’

Shankari Chandran is the author of the novel Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens (Ultimo).

‘After Story by Larissa Behrendt (UQP). Now that my local bookstore is open, I’m ordering copies for my friends and then I’m going to pretend I haven’t read it so I can suggest it to my book club (book club has very strict rules but, between you and me, it’s worth breaking that social contract for After Story). It has everything I want in a book: a lawyer who loves literature; the norms, falsehoods and shame created by our colonised histories (including the literature of the coloniser); and the messy, messy love that ties families together. It’s painful, warm and utterly beautiful.’

 

Jennifer Pinkerton is the author of the forthcoming nonfiction exploration of modern love Heartland (A&U, May).

‘One of my big loves is my place on the map: the Northern Territory. As it’s such a beautiful, but sometimes strange part of Australia, I am always keen to dip into writing that explores Northern Australia’s quirks, past and present. The last book that I couldn’t put down was Larrimah by Caroline Graham and Kylie Stevenson (A&U), about a missing man from a small town in the outback, about 500 km south of Darwin. The writers themselves ended up getting entangled in the narrative … a bit like I did in Heartland. The story is gripping, dark and weird, but full of heart.’

 

Monica McInerney is a bestselling novelist. Her first book for children, Marcie Gill and the Caravan Park Cat (Puffin), was released in late 2021.

‘I’ve been reading so many brilliant books by Australian authors in the past 18 months, but I’d like to shine a spotlight on two debut novelists I worked with through the Australian Society of Authors’ mentorship program. They both worked for years on their first novels, which were published during lockdown, and I’m still hopeful they’ll find many happy readers: Catch Us the Foxes by Nicola West (S&S), a gripping, witty, unpredictable thriller, described as The Dry meets Twin Peaks; and The Last of the Apple Blossom by Mary-Lou Stephens (HQ Fiction), a heartfelt historical drama following two women’s lives, loves and families over decades in Tasmania.’

Pictured L–R: Shankari Chandran, Monica McInerney.

Among recent acquisitions are a spate of two-book deals. MacLehose Press, an imprint of Hachette-owned UK publisher Quercus, has acquired world rights to two new novels by Australian author Peter Papathanasiou in a deal brokered by Martin Shaw at Shaw Literary. The new books follow on from Papathanasiou’s debut crime novel The Stoning (Transit Lounge), which introduced readers to Detective Sergeant George Manolis. Shaw says The Invisible ‘takes place in Greece, but [is] a far cry from the popular image of idyllic Aegean islands and tourist beaches’, adding that it ‘underscores Pete as a serious writing talent and a truly international Australian author who is right at home with a leading international publisher of first-class crime fiction’. The Invisible will be published simultaneously in the UK and Australia in September 2022.

Recently established independent publisher Ultimo Press has acquired a new novel by Sophie Cunningham in a two-book deal brokered by Jane Novak at Jane Novak Literary Agency. Cunningham’s first novel in 15 years, This Devastating Fever ‘explores how hard people fight to live creative lives even when they find themselves at the outset of war, or living through a pandemic, caught up in bushfires, or political turmoil. At its core, however, it is a novel about persistence and love—the mysterious, the beautiful, the strange threads that connect people.’ This Devastating Fever will be published in September 2022 with the second book to follow in 2024.

University of Queensland Press (UQP) has acquired two more books by Aboriginal (pakana) author Adam Thompson, whose debut short story collection Born Into This the press published in 2021. The first acquistion is a novel set in Launceston, Tasmania, the second is a short story collection and will be a companion to Thompson’s critically acclaimed debut, ‘traversing many of the same themes and even revisiting some of the same characters and settings’. UQP will publish Thompson’s novel in early 2023.

UQP has also acquired world rights to two books by debut crime writer Nikki Mottram via Benjamin Paz at Curtis Brown: debut crime novel Crows Nest and the book’s sequel, Killarney. ‘From the moment I started reading Crows Nest I was impressed by Nikki’s assured voice, intricate plotting, and her believably flawed and troubled characters,’ says UQP publisher Aviva Tuffield. ‘Her pacy, polished writing is infused with a sense of menace, combined with a vivid evocation of small-town rural life that many will relate to.’ UQP will publish Crows Nest in August 2022.

HarperCollins has acquired world rights to the novel Tiny Uncertain Miracles and a second nonfiction book by Michelle Johnston in a two-book deal brokered by Martin Shaw of Shaw Literary. HarperCollins publisher Catherine Milne calls Tiny Uncertain Miracles ‘a little bit Eleanor Oliphant, a little bit Less by Andrew Sean Greer, with a dash of Thea Astley and Trent Dalton’. ‘It’s genuinely such a special novel, I guarantee that readers will fall in love with it. Michelle Johnston is such a talent, and I’m thrilled we have acquired her for Fourth Estate,’ Milne adds. Tiny Uncertain Miracles will be published under the Fourth Estate imprint in November 2022.

HarperCollins has also acquired world rights to a forthcoming novel by Elise Hearst, under its HQ imprint, as part of a ‘hotly contested’ two-book deal brokered by Sarah McKenzie Literary Management. According to the publisher, the as yet untitled novel is ‘a fast-paced, sexy and darkly humorous story’ whose central character Naomi, a 27-year-old single Jewish woman in Melbourne, must learn to reconcile family and cultural expectations with her own desires. ‘Fresh, funny and clever, Elise explores women’s agency and sexuality and dysfunctional family dynamics,’ says the publisher of the novel, which will be released in early 2023. Hearst’s second book, also a work of fiction, is due to be published in July 2024.

And in another two-book deal for HQ, the publisher acquired UK & Commonwealth rights to Tracey Lien’s debut novel All That’s Left Unsaid via a ‘competitive nine-way auction’. Commonwealth & UK rights were acquired by HQ publishing director Manpreet Grewal alongside HQ Australia publishing director Sue Brockhoff from Emma Finn at C&W Agency on behalf of Hillary Jacobson at ICM in New York. Emily Krump at William Morrow acquired US rights in both novels, and rights have also sold in Germany, Holland, Romania, Italy and Japan. Set in 1996, in the Sydney suburb of Cabramatta at the height of the 5T gang violence, All That’s Left Unsaid follows Ky, who returns to Cabramatta for the funeral of her younger brother Denny after his brutal murder. Learning that the police are stumped by Denny’s case—several people were present at Denny’s murder, but each bystander claims to have seen nothing—Ky is determined to track down the witnesses herself. ‘When Hillary [Jacobson] first shared this novel with me, I was completely locked in its grip from page one,’ says Finn.‘Tracey is a phenomenal talent and has managed to create both a riveting murder mystery and a nuanced and devastating dissection of racism and the legacy of trauma in Australia. It is electrifying and compulsive in equal measure.’ All That’s Left Unsaid will be published in September 2022.

Debuts galore

Other recently acquired Australian debuts include Something Blue, a work of contemporary fiction by Alex Sarkis, who was discovered by Ultimo publisher Alex Craig through the Australian Society of Authors’ pitch program. A coming-of-age tale described by the publisher as a ‘warm homage’ to growing up in Western Sydney, Something Blue will be published in July 2022. UQP has acquired world rights to Brisbane short fiction writer Laura Elvery’s debut novel Nightingale. Loosely based on the life of Florence Nightingale, the novel  is set over 50 years and revolves around Nightingale herself and two other characters whose lives intersect with hers at various moments. UQP will publish Nightingale in 2023.

Penguin Random House Australia (PRH) has acquired ANZ rights to The Collected Regrets of Clover by Tasmanian debut author Mikki Brammer in a ‘highly competitive’ auction conducted by Jemima Forrester at David Higham Associates on behalf of Michelle Brower at Trellis Literary Management. Beverley Cousins at PRH acquired ANZ rights, while UK rights were sold to Harriet Bourton at Viking and North American rights to Sarah Cantin at St Martin’s Press in a two-book deal. Additional rights continue to sell in foreign markets including Denmark (Lindhardt & Ringhof), Germany (Droemer Knaur), Greece (Dioptra), Italy (Sperling & Kupfer), Norway (Cappelen Damn) and Russia (MTS). The Collected Regrets of Clover is the story of a young woman working as a death doula in New York City, who, while caring for others at the end of their lives, has forgotten how to live her own—until the final wishes of a feisty old woman send her on a road trip to uncover a forgotten love story, and perhaps her own happy ending. PRH will publish The Collected Regrets of Clover in Australia in June 2023.

PRH has also acquired ANZ rights to André Dao’s debut novel Anam, in a deal agented by Clare Forster at Curtis Brown Australia. UK rights have been acquired by Picador UK. Dao’s novel won the 2021 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript and is ‘a novel about memory, colonialism and inheritances’ according to the author. Picador UK editor-in-chief Ravi Mirchandani acquired UK rights via Karolina Sutton at Curtis Brown UK. ‘I was arrested by André Dao’s remarkable and extraordinary novel from the opening pages, knowing that I would want to follow his narrator wherever he chose—and needed—to take me,’ says Mirchandani. ‘Anam seems to me an important novel, of the Vietnamese diaspora, of modern Australia, but more than that, of the world, a powerful, thoughtful, deeply moral exploration of some of the most significant stories and issues of our time.’ Translation sales, handled by Kate Cooper at Curtis Brown UK, have begun, with Dutch rights acquired by Nijgh& Van Ditmar (Singel Group), while North American rights are represented by Amelia Atlas at ICM, all on behalf of Forster at Curtis Brown Australia. PRH will publish Anam in Australia in early 2023.

Pan Macmillan has acquired ANZ rights to Judgement Day, the debut crime novel by Melbourne author Mali Cornish, via Martin Shaw at Shaw Literary in a ‘vigorously contested’ three-way auction. Shaw says Judgement Day is an ‘exceptional debut’, noting that Cornish ‘does everything so well, placing us inside the world of the legal fraternity with such authenticity, with layered descriptions and nuanced characters’. ‘It’s not only a particularly cleverly crafted procedural and character study: it explores themes of family, power, gendered violence and the difference between justice and the law.’ Pan Macmillan will publish Judgement Day in early 2023.

Affirm Press has acquired world rights to debut novel Songs for the Dead and the Living by Sara Saleh, an Arab-Australian human rights activist, organiser, writer and poet. The debut novel is an intergenerational novel following a Palestinian family that ends up in Western Sydney, and is set for publication in 2023.

New books from familiar names       

UQP has acquired world rights to a new novel by Miles Franklin Literary Award winner Melissa Lucashenko in ‘a major, competitive deal’ brokered by Alex Adsett of Alex Adsett Literary. Lucashenko says Edenglassie, her first novel since her 2019 Miles Franklin-winning Too Much Lip (UQP). ‘We believe Edenglassie is Melissa’s most ambitious and memorable novel yet,’ says UQP publishing director Madonna Duffy. ‘Set in 1850s Brisbane when it was called Edenglassie, and in contemporary times, this brilliant story boldly reclaims and reframes the colonial narrative.’ UQP will publish Edenglassie in 2023.

Last year, PRH announced it had acquired Here Goes Nothing, the new novel by Steve Toltz. Publisher Nikki Christer acquired ANZ rights from Elizabeth Sheinkman at Peters, Fraser & Dunlop, who also sold UK rights to Sceptre and US rights to Melville House. Toltz’s third novel follows his Booker Prize shortlisted 2008 debut A Fraction of the Whole and his 2015 follow-up Quicksand, both published by PRH. The publisher describes Here Goes Nothing as ‘a novel of exhilarating originality and scope about birth, death and everything in between’. PRH will publish Here Goes Nothing in Australia under the Hamish Hamilton imprint in May 2022, coinciding with publication in the UK and the US.

Transit Lounge has acquired world rights to Gregory Day’s sixth novel The Bell of the World, in a deal brokered by Jeanne Ryckmans at Cameron’s Management. The Bell of the World is ‘a novel resonant and full of sound, a song to a glorious natural world that is under threat from colonialism’, says Transit Lounge publisher Barry Scott, who ‘quickly fell in love’ with Day’s book. Day is the author of five novels including Archipelago of Souls, The Patron Saint of Eels, which won the 2006 Australian Literature Society Gold Medal, and most recently A Sand Archive, which was shortlisted for the 2019 Miles Franklin Literary Award (all Picador). Day has won the Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize, the Patrick White Award and the Nature Conservancy Australia Nature Writing Prize. The Bell of the World will be published in hardback in late 2022.

Pictured: Tracey Lien

A biography of Australian surfer Owen Wright (world rights acquired by S&S Australia) tells the story of the surfer’s recovery after a serious brain injury ahead of the Pipeline Masters competition in Hawaii: in a single moment, he went from being ranked fifth in the world to having to learn how to walk and talk again. However, in 2017 Wright returned to form, immediately claiming victory at the opening event of the Champions Tour, part of a winning streak that has seen him most recently awarded the bronze medal for surfing at the Tokyo Olympics. Wright’s as yet untitled book will be published in November 2022.

Also in memoir, Ultimo Press has acquired ANZ rights to Homesickness, a literary memoir by Janine Mikosza, in a deal brokered by Melanie Ostell at Melanie Ostell Literary. Homesickness investigates the author’s own trauma through memory. Through words and illustrations, it documents the 14 homes Mikosza lived in before she was 18 and explores how memory and childhood trauma can live on in an adult’s body. Homesickness will be published in May 2022.

Australian Gospel, for which ANZ rights were acquired by Black Inc. via Benython Oldfield at Zeitgeist Agency is the second work of nonfiction by Lech Blaine, whose first memoir Car Crash, was acquired by Black Inc. after being shortlisted for the 2016 Scribe Nonfiction Prize. World English-language (ex ANZ) rights were subsequently sold to Greystone Books. In Australian Gospel, in 1983, a three-year-old boy named Elijah is kidnapped from a Brisbane foster home by a wannabe cult leader named Michael Shelley. Described by publisher Chris Feik as ‘a riveting account of madness and obsession from one of Australia’s best young writers’, Australian Gospel is ‘a thrilling family saga about the twisted fate of two couples and the foster children trapped between their beliefs’. Black Inc. will publish Australian Gospel in April 2024.

Hardie Grant has acquired world rights to Mama Africa, the autobiography of Rosemary Kariuki, the 2021 recipient of the Local Hero Australian of the Year Award. In 1999 Kariuki fled Kenya to arrive in Sydney by herself. In her suitcase was a few hundred dollars, some clothes and several gifts to give strangers. ‘I thought wherever I’m going, I’ll go and get some friends,’ she said.’ Now a multicultural community liaison officer for the Campbelltown Police, Kariuki specialises in helping migrants who are facing isolation, domestic violence, language barriers and financial distress. Hardie Grant will publish Mama Africa in March 2023.

HarperCollins Australia has acquired ANZ rights to You Made Me This Way by journalist Shannon Molloy, in a deal brokered by Pippa Masson of Curtis Brown. Propelled by Molloy’s own experience of sexual abuse as a young child, the book is a ‘part memoir, part self-help, part investigative journalism deep-dive into the taboo topic of child sexual abuse’ and its long-term effects on survivors. You Made Me This Way will be published in early 2023.

Pantera Press has acquired world rights to a debut nonfiction work by Australian hip hop artist Ziggy Ramo. To be published alongside Ramo’s forthcoming album of the same name, Human is ‘part memoir, part history and part cultural reckoning’ and aims to invite readers and listeners to ‘confront the realities of colonisation and dispel the myths that pervade Australian society’. Another hybrid memoir is The Patient Doctor, ‘part memoir, part manifesto’ by cancer survivor turned doctor Ben Bravery, acquired by Hachette Australia in a deal brokered by agent Catherine Drayton at InkWell Management. Hachette will publish The Patient Doctor in the second half of 2022.

Hachette has also acquired world rights to Inconceivable, a memoir by Alexandra Collier, in a deal brokered by Sharne McGee at Liberty Artist Management. Inconceivable chronicles Collier’s decision to join ‘the rising tide of women entering the hope-fuelled fertility industry to try to conceive using a sperm donor’. It follows her journey of searching for the right partner, leaving behind a relationship and her life in New York as a playwright to become a solo mother by choice. A TV show of the same name, a fictional comedy about a solo mother by choice, is currently under option by RevLover. Hachette will publish Inconceivable in early 2023.

On the topic, Pantera Press publisher Lex Hirst acquired ANZ rights to The Mother of All Shocks by Karen Pickering, via Jacinta di Mase. The Mother of All Shocks is an exploration of the pressure modern society places on women to become mothers. Weaving memoir, research and social commentary, the book aims to examine the price women pay for motherhood. It will be published in early 2023. Another anthology, Nothing to Hide: Voices of trans and gender diverse Australia, has been acquired by Allen & Unwin. Edited by Sam Elkin, Alex Gallagher, Yves Rees and Bobuq Sayed, ANZ rights to the collection were acquired via Jacinta di Mase Management after an ‘enthusiastic’ auction. The book will be published in September 2022.

Guides on mental health, dating and finance are also among recent local nonfiction acquisitions.

HarperCollins has acquired world rights to The New Rulebook, a work of illustrated nonfiction by psychologist and educator Chris Cheers, who gained thousands of Instagram followers during the rolling Melbourne and Sydney Covid lockdowns of 2021. Based on Cheers’s ‘trademark friendly, approachable’ Instagram posts, The New Rulebook is ‘part inspiration, part memoir and the inclusive, accessible guide to life’. Cheers says: ‘As a queer man and psychologist who has spent the last decade working with the LGBTIQ+ community, I’m also acutely aware that mental health care is often not presented in a way that is accessible or inclusive. That’s why it’s important to me that this book offers people of all genders and sexualities understanding and acceptance.’ The book be published in February 2023. Hardie Grant has acquired world rights to Tinder Translator: An A–Z of modern misyogyny by Aileen Barratt, via Jacinta di Mase at Jacinta di Mase Management, based on Barratt’s Instagram account of the same name, and described by the publisher as ‘part reference, part rant, part rallying cry’. In it, Barratt will ‘dismantle the stock-standard phrases and experiences we see all too often on dating apps, to make readers laugh, think and feel more empowered’. Tinder Translator will be published in December 2022.

Pantera Press has acquired world rights to Love This for You: How to rewrite the rules and live authentically (November) by LGBTQIA+ activist and podcaster Deni Todorovič, in which Todorovič draws from their own experiences as a queer, non-binary person and child of migrants to share how they’ve ‘learnt to live authentically’. Covering a wide range of topics including family, childhood trauma, gender, sexuality, spirituality and identity, in Love This for You Todorovič ‘takes readers on a life-changing journey of self-love’. Affirm Press, meanwhile, has acquired world rights to Girls Just Want to Have Funds, a personal finance book for women by Molly Benjamin. According to the publisher, Girls Just Want to Have Funds is an ‘engaging and energising take on financial literacy for women’ with humour, personal anecdotes and ‘absolutely zero jargon’ from the founder of Ladies Finance Club, an organisation that works to empower women to take control of their finances through events, workshops and courses with industry experts. Girls Just Want to Have Funds will be published in September 2022.

Other recent nonfiction acquisitions include several to Simon & Schuster, all slated for publication next year. Helen Sullivan’s nonfiction collection Calcium-Magnesium (UK and Commonwealth rights to S&S imprint Scribner via James Pullen at Wylie Agency) blends reportage and memoir to explore ‘how encounters with the natural world—with animals and insects, with the outdoors, and with science and medicine—shape and reflect who we are’. Black Convicts: How slavery shaped colonised Australia by journalist, filmmaker and author Santilla Chingaipe (ANZ rights to Scribner Australia via Grace Heifetz of Left Bank Literary, for publication in 2023), based on four years’ research, reveals that at least 10 of the convicts on the First Fleet were of African descent, and tells the story of the first of around 500 African descended convicts ‘whose stories have been largely erased from Australia’s history’, including that of the first convict bushranger. Finally, a new book by journalist Tracey Spicer looks at ‘the ways that sexist and racist stereotypes are being embedded into emerging technologies, thus perpetuating them’ (acquired by S&S Australia via literary agent Jacinta Di Mase). S&S will also publish Chasing Wrongs and Rights, a work of nonfiction by Elaine Pearson, the Australia director at global organisation Human Rights Watch under its Scribner imprint, having acquired world rights. It will be published in the second half of 2022.

Finally, Scribe has acquired a nonfiction book about sexual violence by Canberra-based prosecutor Katrina Marson. World rights (ex North America) were acquired from Grace Heifetz at Left Bank Literary. The as yet untitled book will be ‘a reflection on the limitations of the justice system and a call to overhaul Australia’s approach to sex education’, taking as its foundation ‘the understanding that having access to age-appropriate sex-ed is a fundamental human right of kids and adolescents, and further, that sex-ed is one of the key ways that societies can address sexual violence’. The book will be published in the second half of 2022.

Pictured: Molly Benjamin.

In this gripping art heist thriller, art conservator JJ Jego spots a long-lost masterpiece through the window of a luxury apartment – what she believes is a priceless Van Gogh thought to have been destroyed in World War II. She also spies a Rembrandt, stolen in an infamous 1990 robbery in Boston. Setting out to discover if these works are fake or genuine, JJ is drawn into a dark web of intrigue, deception and murder that spans the pubs of Belfast, the boardrooms of Monte Carlo and the shores of Sydney Harbour.

‘John M Green knows his way around a thriller’
—Michael Connolly

Framed
Author: John M Green
Publisher: Pantera Press
Pub date: August 2022
Rights available: World
Contact: Katy McEwen
Email: katy.mcewen@panterapress.com
Catalogue URL: Framed

In February this year, first-time author Veronica Gorrie took home Australia’s richest literary prize, the $100,000 Victorian Prize for Literature at the 2022 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, for her memoir Black and Blue: A memoir of racism and resilience (Scribe). ‘Her personal journey, from thinking she can change Aboriginal worlds through joining the police force through to being an abolitionist, is an urgent story to be told and one that must be heard,’ said the prize judges of the book, which also won the $25,000 prize for Indigenous writing. Winners in other categories included Melissa Manning’s short story collection Smokehouse (UQP) and Amani Haydar’s memoir The Mother Wound (Macmillan).

The 2021 winners of similarly government-funded prizes the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards (PMLAs) were announced late last year, with veteran Tasmanian writer Amanda Lohrey winning the $80,000 fiction category for her novel The Labyrinth (Text). Lohrey’s eighth work of fiction, The Labyrinth previously won the prestigious 2021 Miles Franklin Literary award and was also the recipient of the 2021 Voss Literary Prize. Other books awarded the $80,000 PMLAs prize money last year include The Stranger Artist (Quentin Sprague, Hardie Grant) for nonfiction, and People of the River (Grace Karskens, A&U) for Australian history.

Awarded in the category of literature every three years, the 2021 Melbourne Prize for Literature for an outstanding body of work went to The Slap and long-time Allen & Unwin author Christos Tsiolkas. While Tsiolkas took home the $60,000 prize, poet and author of the recently Stella Prize-shortlisted collection Dropbear (UQP) Evelyn Araluen won the $20,000 Professional Development Award; writer and comics artist Eloise Grills won the $15,000 Writer’s Prize; and Maxine Beneba Clarke was named the winner of the public-voted Civic Choice Award.

Presented biennially by the South Australian government, the 2022 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature were presented across 11 categories earlier this month. The Yield by Tara June Winch (Penguin) (which has won several high-profile awards including the 2020 Miles Franklin), was awarded both the $15,000 fiction prize and the $25,000 prize for best overall published work, while other category winners included Olive Cotton by Helen Ennis (HarperCollins) for nonfiction, and Fifteeners by the late Jordie Albiston (Puncher & Wattmann) for poetry.

A whole spate of well-regarded awards were announced towards the end of last year. Victorian writer Jock Serong won the $50,000 ARA Historical Novel Prize in the adult category for The Burning Island (Text), while Sofie Laguna’s fourth novel Infinite Splendours (A&U) was awarded the $20,000 Colin Roderick Literary Award and the H T Priestley Medal, and Luke Stegemann’s book Amnesia Road (NewSouth) took home the $20,000 Mark and Evette Moran Nib Literary Award, which recognises the role research plays in fiction and nonfiction.

Also in nonfiction, The Winter Road by Kate Holden (Black Inc.) won the 2022 Walkley Book Award for excellence in nonfiction and long-form journalism, while two essay collections jointly won the 2021 Small Press Network Book of the Year Award: Echoes (Shu-Ling Chua, Somekind Press) and We Are Speaking in Code (Tanya Vavilova, Brio). Beloved Australian author Trent Dalton recently won the 2022 Indie Book of the Year for his first work of nonfiction, Love Stories (Fourth Estate). Chosen by independent booksellers around Australia, this year’s Indie Awards also went to category winners including Once There Were Wolves (Charlotte McConaghy, Hamish Hamilton) for fiction, The Silent Listener (Lyn Yeowart, Penguin) for debut fiction, and Still Life (Amber Creswell Bell, Thames & Hudson) for illustrated nonfiction.

Diana Reid, who wrote her first book Love & Virtue (Ultimo) during lockdown in Sydney, won the 2022 MUD Literary Prize for a debut novel, while fellow debut author Andrew Pippos was recognised for Lucky’s (Picador), which won last year’s Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction, chosen by booksellers from Australian bookselling chain Readings. In terms of genre fiction, the 2021 Danger Prize for the best book about Sydney crime went jointly to novel Trust (Chris Hammer, A&U) and true crime book I Catch Killers (Gary Jubelin with Dan Box, HarperCollins), while Laura Jean McKay’s The Animals in that Country (Scribe), which won the 2020 Victorian Prize for Literature, has since won the UK’s Arthur C Clarke Award for science fiction.

Trent Dalton, whose 2018 debut Boy Swallows Universe remains in the top 10 Australian fiction bestsellers over three years after its publication, is at the top of Australian nonfiction charts for the year to date with his collection Love Stories, released in October last year.

Love Stories is closely followed in the Australian nonfiction chart by Edie Jaku’s memoir The Happiest Man on Earth—2021’s overall top-selling nonfiction title for the year.

In Australian fiction, Liane Moriarty’s Apples Never Fall, released in September 2021, is well ahead of all competition, having sold more than double the number of copies sold by the next best-selling Australian novel for the year to date, Hannah Kent’s Devotion.

Top 10 Australian fiction bestsellers YTD

1. Apples Never Fall (Liane Moriarty, Macmillan) 27,265
2. Devotion (Hannah Kent, Picador) 12,760
3. Three Sisters (Heather Morris, Echo) 10,145
4. Boy Swallows Universe (Trent Dalton, HarperCollins) 9735
5. The Dictionary of Lost Words (Pip Williams, Affirm) 9655
6. Love & Virtue (Diana Reid, Ultimo) 7850
7. The Spy’s Wife (Fiona McIntosh, Michael Joseph) 7450
8. Treasure and Dirt (Chris Hammer, A&U) 7320
9. The Younger Wife (Sally Hepworth, Macmillan) 7020
10. The Cane (Maryrose Cuskelly, A&U) 6885

Top 10 Australian nonfiction bestsellers YTD

1. Love Stories (Trent Dalton, HarperCollins) 26,295
2. The Happiest Man on Earth (Eddie Jaku, Macmillan) 23,700
3. The 10:10 Diet (Sarah Di Lorenzo, S&S) 22,135
4. The Barefoot Investor (Scott Pape, Wiley) 15,625
5. She’s on the Money (Victoria Devine, Penguin Life) 9505
6. Let Go (Hugh van Cuylenburg, Penguin Life) 9155
7. The Resilience Project (Hugh van Cuylenburg, Penguin Life) 8170
8. One Pan Perfect (Donna Hay, HarperCollins) 6065
9. Three Birds Renovations: Dream home how-to (Bonnie Hindmarsh, Erin Cayless & Lana Taylor, Murdoch Books) 5780
10. CSIRO Low-Carb Diabetes Every Day (Grant Brinkworth & Penny Taylor, Macmillan) 5495

© Nielsen BookScan 2022. Period covered: 2 January 2022 to week ending 19 March 2022. Data supplied by Nielsen BookScan’s book sales monitoring system from 1000 retailers nationwide.