Our top 10 bestsellers of the week

  1. No Friend but the Mountains by Behrouz Boochani, translated by Omid Tofighian
  2. Ottolenghi Simple by Yotam Ottolenghi
  3. Say Hello by Carly Findlay
  4. The Fast 800 by Michael Mosley
  5. Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe
  6. The Madonna of the Mountains by Elise Valmorbida
  7. Normal People by Sally Rooney
  8. Becoming by Michelle Obama
  9. Any Ordinary Day by Leigh Sales
  10. Less by Andrew Sean Greer

Detained Kurdish journalist Behrouz Boochani’s No Friend but the Mountains tops last week’s bestsellers list, after it was awarded the Prize for Non-fiction and the overall Victorian Prize for Literature at this year’s Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards (VPLAs). Boochani’s book is a moving account of his experience on Manus Island offshore detention facility, and has been heralded by its judges as a ‘devastating and transcendent’ literary triumph.

The winner of the Fiction category at the VPLAs, Elise Valmorbida’s historical novel The Madonna of the Mountains, was also in our top 10. Set in Italy during the mid-20th century, the book’s focus on the interior life of a woman from a poor rural village was compared by the judges to the novels of Elena Ferrante. Other fiction titles in the top 10 include popular staff picks Normal People and Less.

Yotam Ottolenghi’s fresh and delicious cookbook, Ottolenghi Simple was second in the top 10, boosted by readers snapping up copies at our fantastic sold-out event with the beloved chef at Melbourne Town Hall last week. Also in the top three is Carly Findlay’s inspiring memoir and proud manifesto on disability, Say Hello, which was launched at the Wheeler Centre. Other nonfiction titles that continued to prove popular include books by Bruce Pascoe, Michael Mosley, Michelle Obama and Leigh Sales.