We kicked off 2016 by sharing our 100 bestselling books of last year (as well as our 25 bestselling DVDs and 25 bestselling albums). Click here for a category breakdown of those bestselling books, and the number one seller for each category.

You can also find our top ten bestselling books of the month here.

It was a big month for literary awards with the Indie Book Awards shortlist, the Finalists for National Book Critics Circle Awards, and the winners of the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards all being announced – to name a few! We were particularly thrilled to hear that Frances Hardinge’s YA novel, The Lie Tree, won the Costa Book of the Year – she is a favourite with our staff. We were equally delighted last year too when her book Cuckoo Song became the first YA novel to win Best Novel in the British Fantasy Awards 2015. If you haven’t read her yet, you’re seriously missing out.

January also saw the announcement of the 2016 Oscar nominations, 11 of which were inspired by books. Our staff are especially enamoured with Patricia Highsmith’s Carol, both the book and film. It has been nominated for five Awards.

We had some terrific events. Together with Cinema Nova we hosted a special premiere viewing of the first two episodes of new SBS original series The Family Law, based on Benjamin Law’s bestselling memoir of the same name. The screening was followed by a Q&A with Law himself. Culinary Queen Nigella Lawson also came to visit, causing much excitement among our staff. And we had some excellent visitors to our shop, including one of our favourite furry friends and Willy Wonka himself.

On our blog, we showed you how to travel around the world in 25 books, and our children’s specialist Holly Harper put together a collection of books to inspire young writers. We were prompted by Sunil Yapa’s debut novel set during the 1999 Seattle World Trade Organization protests, to find other terrific fiction set during key historical events.

Many of our staff were devastated to learn of David Bowie’s passing. Four of them reflect on how his work impacted on their lives here.

We also shared our Stella Sparks – the books by Australian women that struck a spark. Our booksellers’ picks range from Robin Klein’s Hating Alison Ashley to Chloe Hooper’s The Tall Man, from Mandy Ord’s Sensitive Creatures to Tara Jane Winch’s Swallow the Air.