Inside the Australian and New Zealand book industry

Image. Advertisement:

‘Boy Swallows Universe’ and ‘The Barefoot Investor’ top 2019 Australian charts

Tuesday, 11 February 2020   Books+Publishing
@booksandpublishing

Trent Dalton’s multi-award-winning debut novel Boy Swallows Universe and Scott Pape’s 2016 guide to household finance The Barefoot Investor have topped the Australian fiction and nonfiction charts for 2019—the third year running for Pape’s bestseller. Historical fiction continues to perform well for Australian authors, with Heather Morris’ The Tattooist of Auschwitz and Cilka’s Journey both making it into the Oz fiction top 10, along with Judy Nunn’s Khaki Town and Fiona McIntosh’s The Diamond Hunter. Crime thrillers were also represented by two bestselling debuts: Jane Harper’s 2016 novel The Dry and Christian White’s The Nowhere Child. In nonfiction, Bruce Pascoe’s 2014 book Dark Emu—which reexamines colonial myths around Aboriginal Australians—has found a huge audience several years after it was first published, while comedian Kitty Flanagan’s comic guide to life, Kitty Flanagan’s 488 Rules for Life, was a 2019 Christmas bestseller.

Australian fiction bestsellers 2019

  1. Boy Swallows Universe (Trent Dalton, HarperCollins)
  2. The Tattooist of Auschwitz (Heather Morris, Echo Publishing)
  3. Khaki Town (Judy Nunn, William Heinemann)
  4. Nine Perfect Strangers (Liane Moriarty, Pan)
  5. Cilka’s Journey (Heather Morris, Echo Publishing)
  6. The Last Paradise (Di Morrissey, Macmillan)
  7. The Diamond Hunter (Fiona McIntosh, Michael Joseph)
  8. The Dry (Jane Harper, Pan)
  9. The Rosie Result (Graeme Simsion, Text Publishing)
  10. The Nowhere Child (Christian White, Affirm Press)

Australian nonfiction bestsellers 2019

  1. The Barefoot Investor (Scott Pape, John Wiley)
  2. Dark Emu (Bruce Pascoe, Magabala Books)
  3. Kitty Flanagan’s 488 Rules for Life (Kitty Flanagan, Allen & Unwin)
  4. Easy Keto (Pete Evans, Plum)
  5. When All is Said and Done (Neale Daniher, Macmillan)
  6. 4 Ingredients Keto (Kim McCosker, 4 Ingredients)
  7. The Barefoot Investor for Families (Scott Pape, HarperCollins)
  8. James Cook (Peter FitzSimons, Hachette)
  9. Any Ordinary Day (Leigh Sales, Hamish Hamilton)
  10. Against All Odds (Craig Challen & Richard Harris, Penguin)

© Nielsen BookScan 2020
Period covered: 30 December 2018 to 28 December 2019
Data supplied by Nielsen BookScan’s book sales monitoring system from 1000 retailers nationwide

 

Category: Think Australian bestsellers