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CBCA Shortlisted Books 2024
The Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) has announced its Shortlisted Books for 2024. Congratulations to all the authors, illustrators and publishers! The CBCA presents annual awards to books of literary merit, for outstanding contribution to Australian children’s literature. The CBCA Awards were first presented in 1946 and are the longest-running book awards in Australia.
Below are links to the shortlist titles for each category.
Older Readers
Books in this category may be fiction, drama or poetry and are appropriate…
The March crime review
These are the crime books which have been read and reviewed by our excellent booksellers this month – all in one place!
What Happened to Nina? by Dervla McTiernan
Reviewed by Lian Hingee, digital marketing manager
Australia is blessed with some of the very best crime writers in the world right now, and Dervla McTiernan is without a doubt one of the finest. Her debut, The Rúin, was a global bestseller that won a host of awards when…
Australian fiction to pick up this month
Thanks for Having Me by Emma Darragh
Mary Anne is painfully aware that she's not a good wife and not a good mother, and is slowly realising that she no longer wants to play either of those roles. One morning, she walks out of the family home in Wollongong, leaving her husband and teenage daughters behind. Wounded by her mother's abandonment, adolescent Vivian searches for meaning everywhere: true crime, boys' bedrooms, Dolly magazine, a six-pack of beer. But when Vivian…
A spotlight on translated fiction this month
This month we're reading fiction translated from Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Dutch!
Until August by Gabriel García Márquez (translated from Spanish by Anne McLean)
Sitting alone, overlooking the still and blue lagoon, Ana Magdalena Bach surveys the men of the hotel bar. She is happily married and has no reason to escape the world she has made with her husband and children. And yet, every August, she travels here to the island where her mother is buried, and for…
The 2024 International Booker Longlist
The International Booker Prize has revealed the ‘Booker Dozen’ of 13 novels in contention for the 2024 prize, which celebrates the finest works of translated fiction from around the world.
The prize is awarded every year for a single book that is translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland. It aims to encourage more publishing and reading of quality works of imagination from all over the world, and to give greater recognition to the role of translators…
The Carol Shields Prize longlist 2024
The 2024 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction longlist has been anounced!
The Carol Shields Prize for Fiction is the first major English-language literary prize to celebrate creativity and excellence in fiction by women and non-binary writers in Canada and the United States, awarding $150,000 USD to its winner, and $12,500 USD to each of its four finalists.
Explore the 15 longlisted titles below.
Cocktail by Lisa Alward
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
Dances by Nicole Cuffy
Daughter by Claudia Dey
…
Our February 2024 children's and young adult bestsellers
1. Taylor Swift: A Little Golden Book Biography by Wendy Loggia & Elisa Chavarri (illus.)
2. Waverider (Amulet, Book 9) by Kazu Kibuishi
3. Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell
4. The Essential Taylor Swift Fanbook
5. Blank Spaces: An Unofficial Taylor Swift Fan Journal
6. Artichoke to Zucchini by Alice Oehr
7. Heartstopper: Volume Five by Alice Oseman
8. Winter Turning (Wings of Fire Graphic Novel, Book Seven) by Tui T. Sutherland
Our February 2024 bestsellers
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi & Geoffrey Trousselot (trans.)
Good Material by Dolly Alderton
House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J. Maas
Question 7 by Richard Flanagan
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life by Hector Garcia & Francesc Miralles
Atomic Habits by James Clear
Come and Get It by Kiley Reid
Best food and gardening books of the month, with Chris Gordon
The Mediterranean Cook by Meni Valle
Meni Valle is a teacher and a culinary tour guide in the Mediterranean. This is excellent news because it means her recipes are easy to follow, considered for a range of skill sets, and include a historical background to each dish. This is her sixth cookbook, and it captures the Mediterranean approach of dishes that spread from the early afternoon through to the evening. Imagine filo pastries, stuffed vegetables, grilled meats, and delicious fruit-based…
What we're reading: Okazaki, Scanlan & Blain
Each week our wonderful staff share the books and music that they've been enjoying.
Mark Rubbo is reading We All Lived in Bondi Then by Georgia Blain
I have been reading the posthumous collection of short stories by Georgia Blain, We All Lived in Bondi Then. It's an exquisite collection, moving, at times funny and so readable. I was reminded of Alice Munro and Tessa Hadley.
I've also just read Nicholas Jose's novel The Idealist. Think le Carré…
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