Given the popularity of the film version of Andy Weir's irresistible interstellar adventure Project Hail Mary, it comes as no surprise the book has topped our chart for March!
It has also been a terrific month for new Australian fiction and nonfiction, including: On Not Climbing Mountains by Claire Thomas, which our reviewer says will be 'this year's best novel'; a searing analysis of John Howard's tenure as prime minister; a new way of talking about death in the 21st century; Louise Milligan's second crime novel, Shellybanks; and a special mention goes to The Rot which won the 2026 Victorian Prize for Literature and 2026 VPLA Prize for Indigenous Writing, and has just been shortlisted for the 2026 Stella Prize.
Find all twenty of March's most popular books below!
1. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
2. On Not Climbing Mountains by Claire Thomas
3. Heart the Lover by Lily King
4. The Rot by Evelyn Araluen
5. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
6. Old Games by Fiona Hardy
7. Where It All Went Wrong by Amy Remeikis
8. Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
9. How to Die in the 21st Century by Hannah Gould
10. Mother Mary Comes To Me by Arundhati Roy
11. Where the Light Gets In by Ben Crowe
12. Shellybanks by Louise Milligan
13. Slip by Abbey Lay
14. Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash
15. Quarterly Essay 101: Blind Spot by Michael Wesley
16. The Mother of All Calamities by Lisa Moule
17. Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, Book 1) by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, translated by Geoffrey Trousselot
18. Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth
19. Strange Buildings by Uketsu, translated by Jim Rion
20. The Shortest History of Innovation by Andrew Leigh
