2017 Australian Literature Society (ALS) Gold Medal longlist

One Hundred Letters Home (Adam Aitken, Vagabond)

The Easy Way Out (Steven Amsterdam, Hachette)

Between a Wolf and a Dog (Georgia Blain, Scribe)

Ghostspeaking (Peter Boyle, Vagabond)

Letters to Pessoa (Michelle Cahill, Giramondo)

Bull Days (Tina Giannoukous, Arcadia)

Ahead of Us (Dennis Haskell, Fremantle Press)

The High Places (Fiona McFarlane, Hamish Hamilton)

Music and Freedom (Zoe Morrison, Vintage)

Wood Green (Sean Rabin, Giramondo)

The Museum of Modern Love (Heather Rose, A&U)

Ruins (Rajith Savandasa, Hachette)

Stella Prize 2017 Longlist

The Stella Prize is presented for the best work of fiction or nonfiction by an Australian women published in the previous calendar year. The prize is named after Miles Franklin, whose first name was Stella, and was inspired by the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction.

The longlist for the 2017 Stella Prize has been announced recently. Continue reading

2016 Costa Book Awards

The Costa Book Awards honour some of the most outstanding books of the year written by authors based in the UK and Ireland. There are five categories – First Novel, Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children’s Book – with one of the five winners chosen as Book of the Year, announced at an awards ceremony in London every January.

2016 winners are Continue reading

Top Book Reads of 2016!

If you were wondering what books had the most loans for 2016, wonder no more! Here are the top ten of the year.

Adult Fiction

  1. The girl on the train – Paula Hawkins
  2. 15th affair – James Patterson
  3. Cometh the hour – Jeffrey Archer
  4. Make me – Lee Child
  5. Big little lies – Liane Moriarty
  6. Rogue lawyer – John Grisham
  7. The crossing -Michael Connelly
  8. The steel kiss – Jeffrey Deaver
  9. The guilty – David Baldacci
  10. Private Paris – James Patterson and Personal – Lee Child

Adult Non Fiction

  1. The life-changing magic of tidying up – Marie Kondo
  2. Road users’ handbookRoads and Traffic Authority of NSW
  3. Driver qualification handbookRoads and Traffic Authority of NSW and A guide to the driving testRoads and Traffic Authority of NSW
  4. Reckoning: a memoir – Magda Szubanski and Hazard perception handbookRoads and Traffic Authority of NSW
  5. The secret – Rhonda Byrne
  6. Tax for Australians for dummies – Jimmy B. Prince
  7. The happiest refugee – Ahn Do
  8. I quit sugar – Sarah Wilson
  9. The 8-week blood sugar diet – Michael Mosley
  10. Flesh wounds – Richard Glover

For Young Adults

  1. Harry Potter and the cursed child. Parts one and two – Jack Thorne
  2. The fault in our stars – John Green and Paper towns – John Green
  3. The scorch trials – James Dashner
  4. Allegiant – Veronica Roth
  5. Catching fire – Suzanne Collins
  6. Divergent – Veronica Roth
  7. The book thief – Marcus Zusak
  8. The hunger games – Suzanne Collins
  9. The city of heavenly fire – Cassandra Clare
  10. If I stay – Gayle Forman

For Children

  1. Diary of a wimpy kid: the long haul – Jeff Kinney
  2. Diary of a wimpy kid: the third wheel – Jeff Kinney
  3. The 52-storey treehouse – Andy Griffiths
  4. Thea Stilton and the mystery on the Orient Express – Thea Stilton
  5. The only me – Meredith Harvey
  6. The 65-storey treehouse – Andy Griffiths
  7. Diary of a wimpy kid: old school – Jeff Kinney
  8. The wimpy kid movie diary – Jeff Kinney
  9. The perilous plants – Geronimo Stilton
  10. Totally weird! – Ahn Do