ABIA 2016 longlists announced

The longlists for this year’s Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs) have been announced.

They are:

General fiction book of the year

• The Lake House (Kate Morton, A&U)
• Close Your Eyes (Michael Robotham, Sphere)
• Hope Farm (Peggy Frew, Scribe)
• The Perfumer’s Secret (Fiona McIntosh, Michael Joseph)
• Spirits of the Ghan (Judy Nunn, William Heinemann)
• The Heat (Garry Disher, Text)
• The Patterson Girls (Rachael Johns, Harlequin)
• In the Quiet (Eliza Henry Jones, HarperCollins)

Literary fiction book of the year

• The Natural Way of Things (Charlotte Wood, A&U)
• The Other Side of the World (Stephanie Bishop, Hachette)
• A Guide to Berlin (Gail Jones, Vintage)
• The Secret Chord (Geraldine Brooks, Hachette)
• The World Without Us (Mireille Juchau, Bloomsbury)
• Six Bedrooms (Tegan Bennet Daylight, Vintage)
• The Anchoress (Robyn Cadwallader, HarperCollins)
• Napoleon’s Last Island (Tom Keneally, Vintage)

General nonfiction book of the year

• One Life: My Mother’s Story (Kate Grenville, Text)
• Island Home (Tim Winton, Hamish Hamilton)
• Australia’s Second Chance (George Megalogenis, Hamish Hamilton)
• Green Nomads: Across Australia’s Wild Heritage (Bob Brown, Hardie Grant)
• Fromelles & Pozières: In the Trenches of Hell (Peter FitzSimons, William Heinemann)
• Worst Words: A Compendium of Contemporary Cant, Gibberish and Jargon (Don Watson, Vintage)
• Atmosphere of Hope: Searching for Solutions to the Climate Crisis (Tim Flannery, Text)
• The Dismissal (Paul Kelly & Troy Bramston, Viking)

Biography of the year

• Reckoning: A Memoir (Magda Szubanski , Text)
• A Mother’s Story (Rosie Batty, HarperCollins)
• Flesh Wounds (Richard Glover, HarperCollins)
• Keating (Kerry O’Brien, A&U)
• The Anti-Cool Girl (Rosie Waterland, HarperCollins)
• Plain-speaking Jane (Jane Caro, Macmillan)
• Second Half First (Drusilla Modjeska, Knopf)
• Inside (Chris Judd, A&U)
• Born to Rule (Paddy Manning, MUP)

Older children (8 to 14 years)

• Illuminae (Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff, A&U)
• Soon (Morris Gleitzman, Viking)
• The Singing Bones (Shaun Tan, A&U)
• The Red Queen (Isobelle Carmody, Viking)
• Cloudwish (Fiona Wood, Macmillan)
• Paper Planes (Steve Worland, Puffin)
• The Cat with the Coloured Tail (Gillian Mears, Walker Books)
• Under Suspicion: Friday Barnes Book 2 (R A Spratt, Random House Children’s)

Younger children (0 to 8 years)                                                

• The 65-Storey Treehouse (Andy Griffiths, illus by Terry Denton, Macmillan)
• My Dog Bigsy (Alison Lester, Viking)
• Perfect (Danny Parker & Freya Blackwood, Hardie Grant)
• This is a Ball (Beck & Matt Stanton, ABC Books)
• A is for Australia (Frané Lessac, Walker Books)
• Eye to Eye (Graeme Base, Viking)
• The Amazing True Story Of How Babies Are Made (Fiona Katauskas, ABC Books)
• Being Agatha (Anna Pignataro, Five Mile)

Illustrated book of the year

• Wendy Whiteley and the Secret Garden (Janet Hawley, Lantern)
• Special Delivery (Annabel Crabb & Wendy Sharpe, Murdoch Books)
• The Happy Cookbook (Lola Berry, Plum)
• Falafel for Breakfast (Michael Rantissi & Kristy Frawley, Murdoch Books)
• The Forgotten Notebook (Betty Churcher, MUP)
• Super Green Smoothies (Sally Obermeder & Maha Koraiem, A&U)
• Cornersmith (Alex Elliott-Howery & James Grant, Murdoch Books)
• Shelter (Kara Rosenlund, Lantern)
• I Quit Sugar: Simplicious (Sarah Wilson, Macmillan)

International book of the year                                                 

• A Little Life (Hanya Yanagihara, Macmillan)
• The Story of the Lost Child (Elena Ferrante, Text)
• The Girl on the Train (Paula Hawkins, Transworld)
• Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Under-Rated Organ (Giulia Enders, Scribe)
• The Day The Crayons Came Home (Drew Daywalt & Oliver Jeffers, HarperCollins)
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone Illustrated Edition (J K Rowling, illus by Jim Ray, Bloomsbury)
• Go Set a Watchman (Harper Lee, Random House)
• Grandpa’s Great Escape (David Walliams, HarperCollins)

Matt Richell Award for new writer of the year

• Reckoning: A Memoir (Magda Szubanski, Text)
• Rush Oh! (Shirley Barrett, Picador)
• The Anti-Cool Girl (Rosie Waterland, Flamingo)
• Relativity (Antonia Hayes, Viking)
• Fever of Animals (Miles Allinson, Scribe)
• Hot Little Hands (Abigail Ulman, Hamish Hamilton)
• The Anchoress (Robyn Cadwallader, HarperCollins)
• Salt Creek (Lucy Treloar, Macmillan)

Small publishers’ children’s book of the year    

• Numerical Street (Antonia Presenti & Hilary Bell, NewSouth)
• The Underwater Fancy-Dress Parade (Davina Bell, Scribe)
• Anzac Sons: The Story of Five Brothers on the Western Front (Allison Paterson, Big Sky Publishing)
• Horace the Baker’s Horse (Jackie French, National Museum of Australia)
• Kookoo Kookaburra (Gregg Dreise, Magabala Books)
• My Pop is a Pirate (Damon Young, illus by Peter Carnavas, UQP)
• One Step at a Time (Jane Jolly & Sally Heinrich, MidnightSun Publishing)
• Torri the Great Reef Surfing Turtle (B B Byrnes with Bron Simpson, Renbro Publishing)

Small publishers’ adult book of the year

• All Fall Down (Matthew Condon, UQP)
• Body Lengths (Leisel Jones, Black Inc.)
• Long Tan, the Start of a Lifelong Battle (Harry Smith, Big Sky Publishing)
• Australia Remember When (Bon Byrne, NewSouth)
• The Art of Free Travel (Patrick Jones & Meg Ullman, NewSouth)
• Give the Devil His Due (Sulari Gentill, Pantera)
• Ningaloo: Reflections on the Reef (Leith Holtzman, Renbro Publishing)
• Global Megatrends: Seven Patterns of Change Shaping Our Future (Stefan Hajkowicz, CSIRO Publishing).

This is the first time that longlists have been released for the ABIAs. Penguin Random House leads the longlists with 23 titles, followed by HarperCollins (11), Allen & Unwin/Murdoch Books (10), Macmillan (eight) and Text Publishing (six).

A panel of industry experts will select the shortlists, to be announced on 2 May. The winners will be announced on 18 May at a ceremony at the Art Gallery of NSW in Sydney.

The ABIAs celebrate the ‘best books of the year, well published’. For more information, visit the ABIA website here.

Category: Local news