Lonely Planet has announced the appointment of Chris Zeiher to the newly created role of senior director, trade sales and marketing, in which he will... Read more

HarperCollins Australia has announced the shortlist for the 2021 Banjo Prize for an unpublished work of commercial fiction. The shortlisted manuscripts are: ‘My Father the... Read more

In the UK, the winners of the Wainwright Prizes for nature and conservation writing have been announced, reports the Bookseller. James Rebanks won the nature... Read more

The Australia Reads campaign and ALIA’s Online Storytime initiative are among the latest recipients of the federal government’s RISE funding.

A new bookshop, The Chestnut Tree, has opened in Melbourne’s inner west. Meanwhile, Auckland booksellers remain in level four lockdown, under which they’re unable to sell online. The program for this year’s Australian Short Story Festival, which is scheduled to ahead in-person in Adelaide, has also been announced.

In awards news, Robbie Arnott’s The Rain Heron won the revived Age Book of the Year award; the winners of the $10,000 ACU Poetry Prize and NSW Premier’s History Awards were announced; and the longlist for this year’s Richell Prize was revealed. The Stella Prize has also rebranded and expanded its eligibility to include poetry collections.

Overseas, the US book industry is facing major supply chain challenges ahead of the busy holiday season. The Beijing Book Fair is going ahead later this month as the Chinese book market continues to grow. In other international news, UK writer Salman Rushdie will publish his next book on digital newsletter platform Substack.

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TikTok’s #BookTok hashtag recently saw backlist titles It Ends With Us (Colleen Hoover, S&S) and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (Taylor Jenkins Reid, S&S)... Read more

Marcie Gill and the Caravan Park Cat (Puffin, November) is Monica McInerney’s first book for children. Set in South Australia, it follows Marcie Gill as... Read more

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... Read more

Sales Fiction  Affirm Press has sold Arabic rights to The Dictionary of Lost Words (Pip Williams) to SRMG. Black Inc. has sold North American rights... Read more

Two Bluey picture books celebrating dads are in first and second spot on the overall bestsellers chart, ahead of Father’s Day this Sunday. Elsewhere, Jamie... Read more

The One That Got Away documents journalist and travel writer Ken Haley’s year evading the pandemic. While many of us were kept in captivity as... Read more

Readers won’t be shocked to learn that Sally Hepworth’s new novel The Younger Wife features a May–December romance between a younger woman and an older man, and... Read more

With a dozen adult novels under her belt, Monica McInerney is now turning her hand to children’s fiction and her first foray into middle-grade territory is just as full of... Read more

Tomorrow is a Brand-New Day is an ode to making a mistake and then making things right. It follows two children—friends with different styles—who come... Read more

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.... Read more

Allen & Unwin (A&U) has acquired ANZ rights to Fancy Meeting You Here from superstar duo Ali Berg and Michelle Kalus.

Evie is a thirty-year-old wannabe screenwriter who spends her days managing a London cinema bar, working on a podcast with her best friend Ben, and reading Hugo Hearst’s books on repeat.

She’s on-again, off-again with a man who will never measure up to the romantic heroes of the books and movies she loves, so she often fantasises about meeting Hugo—and she may have written the odd fanmail . . . or eight. After all, what could be more perfect than a love story with the most swoon-worthy, internationally bestselling writer of our time?

When Evie and Ben interview a psychic to the stars on their podcast, Evie is launched ten years into the past—but the grass isn’t quite as green as she remembers . . .

A&U publisher Kelly Fagan said of the acquisition, ‘I’ve long been a fan of Ali and Michelle’s work, both previous books The Book Ninja and While You Were Reading, as well as their highly inventive Books on the Rail campaigns, so it is truly a delight to be working with them at Allen & Unwin. Their new book, Fancy Meeting You Here, with its literary London setting and blissful blend of magic, comedy and romance, is the perfect remedy to life right now. Our staff have embraced this new book, and Ali & Michelle as authors, and we’re all so excited to share Fancy with existing and new readers.’

Rights were acquired from agent Benython Oldfield of Zeitgeist Agency, who said, ‘Writing duo, Ali Berg and Michelle Kalus are back with a new bookish romp with the haywire Evie Berry at the centre, which will make you yelp with laughter at her obsessions while grimacing at her knocks as she seeks out romance with a mega-famous but vexatious writer. Allen & Unwin and publisher Kelly Fagan went full throttle to win this book and I couldn’t be happier with the company-wide reception and enthusiasm to grow Ali Berg & Michelle Kalus into Australia’s No1 rom-com writers.’

Fancy Meeting You Here by Ali Berg and Michelle Kalus will be published in December 2021.

Scribe has acquired world rights in A Witness of Fact: The peculiar case of chief forensic pathologist Colin Manock by Drew Rooke.

A story of a country and a life. Young Ethiopian engineer Mesfin survives the brutal communist Derg. He works all over his motherland. Then, he... Read more