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Dalton, Pape, Bluey top Australian bestsellers 2020

Wednesday, 17 March 2021   Books+Publishing
@booksandpublishing

For the second year running, Trent Dalton’s debut novel Boy Swallows Universe and Scott Pape’s guide to household finance The Barefoot Investor have come out on top as the year’s overall bestselling Australian books in their respective categories, with The Barefoot Investor the top-selling Australian nonfiction title for the fourth year in a row.

In fiction, Jane Harper’s The Survivors managed to reach second spot on the chart after being released in September 2020, while Trent Dalton’s sophomore novel All Our Shimmering Skies, released in October, made it to number three.

Hope and positivity were the order of the day for Australian nonfiction, with Julia Baird’s Phosphorescence, released in late 2019, the second highest selling title of 2020, followed by 100-year-old Holocaust survivor Eddie Jaku’s memoir The Happiest Man on Earth. Meanwhile, Bruce Pascoe’s perennial bestseller Dark Emu made it to number four on the nonfiction chart, six years after it was first published.

In children’s books, we take a closer look at the category of primary school to young adult (as the picture book category is wall-to-wall Bluey). By far the highest selling title was The 130-storey Treehouse by Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton. Junior and middle fiction series dominated sales, with books from five different series composing the entire top 10 chart.

 Australian fiction bestsellers 2020

  1. Boy Swallows Universe (Trent Dalton, Fourth Estate)
  2. The Survivors (Jane Harper, Macmillan)
  3. All Our Shimmering Skies (Trent Dalton, Fourth Estate)
  4. The Two Lost Mountains (Matthew Reilly, Macmillan)
  5. The Tattooist of Auschwitz (Heather Morris, Echo)
  6. The Dictionary of Lost Words (Pip Williams, Affirm)
  7. Honeybee (Craig Silvey, A&U)
  8. The Godmothers (Monica McInerney, Michael Joseph)
  9. Before the Storm (Di Morrissey, Macmillan)
  10. The Yield (Tara June Winch, Hamish Hamilton)

 Australian nonfiction bestsellers 2020

  1. The Barefoot Investor (Scott Pape, Wiley)
  2. Phosphorescence (Julia Baird, Fourth Estate)
  3. The Happiest Man on Earth (Eddie Jaku, Macmillan)
  4. Dark Emu (Bruce Pascoe, Magabala)
  5. A Bigger Picture (Malcolm Turnbull, Hardie Grant Books)
  6. The Storm Within (Cameron Smith & Andrew Webster, A&U)
  7. The Resilience Project (Hugh van Cuylenburg, Penguin Life)
  8. Breaker Morant (Peter FitzSimons, Hachette)
  9. Killing Time (Jimmy Barnes, HarperCollins)
  10. The Pie Maker (AWW Cookbooks)

Australian children’s primary to YA bestsellers 2020

  1. The 130-Storey Treehouse (Andy Griffiths & Terry Denton, Pan)
  2. The Bad Guys Episode 11: Dawn of the Underlord (Aaron Blabey, Scholastic)
  3. The Secret Cave: Wolf Girl 3 (Anh Do, A&U)
  4. Into the Wild: Wolf Girl 1 (Anh Do, A&U)
  5. Vote WeirDo: WeirDo #14 (Anh Do, A&U)
  6. The Great Escape: Wolf Girl 2 (Anh Do, A&U)
  7. The Bad Guys Episode 12: The One?! (Aaron Blabey, Scholastic)
  8. The 13-Storey Treehouse (Andy Griffiths & Terry Denton, Pan)
  9. The 117-Storey Treehouse (Andy Griffiths & Terry Denton, Pan)
  10. Hollowpox: The Hunt for Morrigan Crow: Nevermoor 3 (Jessica Townsend, Lothian).

© Nielsen BookScan 2021
Period covered: 29 December 2020 to 2 January 2021
Data supplied by Nielsen BookScan’s book sales monitoring system from 1500 retailers nationwide

 

Category: Think Australian bestsellers