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‘The Dry’ and ‘The Barefoot Investor’ top Australian charts

Australian fiction bestsellers: January

Jane Harper’s Force of Nature (Macmillan) has finally ceded top spot on the fiction chart—to Jane Harper’s The Dry (Pan), the debut crime novel that started off the author’s impressive career.

Harper is joined by women writers Liane Moriarty (with three titles in the top 10), Judy Nunn, Di Morrissey, Fiona McIntosh and Loretta Hill—a happy coincidence as the longlist for Australia’s award for women’s writing, The Stella Prize, will be announced tonight Australian time. Jack Heath is the sole male writer in this month’s fiction top 10, and his first novel for adults, Hangman, stars a civilian FBI consultant, who also happens to be a cannibal. The appetite is there for Heath’s grisly thriller, as rights have already sold into five territories.

  1. The Dry (Jane Harper, Pan)
  2. Force of Nature (Jane Harper, Macmillan)
  3. Big Little Lies (Liane Moriarty, Pan)
  4. Truly Madly Guilty (Liane Moriarty, Pan)
  5. The Husband’s Secret (Liane Moriarty, Pan)
  6. Sanctuary (Judy Nunn, William Heinemann)
  7. Hangman (Jack Heath, Allen & Unwin)
  8. The Red Coast (Di Morrissey, Macmillan)
  9. The Tea Gardens (Fiona McIntosh, Michael Joseph)
  10. The Secret Vineyard (Loretta Hill, Bantam)

Australian nonfiction bestsellers: January

The Barefoot Investor author Scott Pape continues his reign over the nonfiction chart in January, with The Bikini Body Motivation and Habits Guide (Kayla Itsines, Macmillan) sitting—perhaps not surprisingly during the height of the Australian summer—at number two. Australian rocker and Cold Chisel frontman Jimmy Barnes holds spots three and eight with his autobiographies Working Class Man and Working Class Boy, respectively, while Unbreakable by Jess Halloran and former world number 4 tennis champion Jelena Dokic (Ebury) has received a boost in January—the month Melbourne hosts the Australian Open grand slam tennis championships.

  1. The Barefoot Investor (Scott Pape, John Wiley)
  2. The Bikini Body Motivation and Habits Guide (Kayla Itsines, Macmillan)
  3. Working Class Man (Jimmy Barnes, HarperCollins)
  4. Unbreakable (Jess Halloran and Jelena Dokic, Ebury)
  5. Super Green Simple and Lean (Sally Obermeder and Maha Koraiem, Allen & Unwin)
  6. Basics to Brilliance Kids (Donna Hay, HarperCollins)
  7. The CSIRO Low-Carb Diet (Grant Brinkworth and Dr Pennie Taylor, Macmillan)
  8. Working Class Boy (Jimmy Barnes, HarperCollins)
  9. Maggie’s Recipe for Life (Maggie Beer and Ralph Martins, Simon & Schuster)
  10. First, We Make the Beast Beautiful (Sarah Wilson, Macmillan)

© Nielsen BookScan 2018
Period covered: 31 December to 27 January 2018
Data supplied by Nielsen BookScan’s book sales monitoring system from 1000 retailers nationwide

 

Category: Think Australian bestsellers