The shortlists for the 2023 Queensland Literary Awards have been announced. The shortlisted titles in each category are: Queensland Premier’s Award for a Work of... Read more

Allen & Unwin has acquired ANZ rights to All the Words We Know by Bruce Nash, with Simon & Schuster’s Atria Books acquiring North American... Read more

The longlist for the 2023 Booker Prize has been announced. The 13 books longlisted for the £50,000 (A$96,700) prize are: A Spell of Good Things... Read more

Lou Johnson and Jeanne Ryckmans have set up a new literary agency; the Wheeler Centre has appointed ABC journalist and producer Erin Vincent as its new CEO, replacing Caro Llewellyn; the Australian Society of Authors has raised concerns of authors and illustrators on the risk posed by generative AI; a new First Nations Australia Writers Network (FNAWN) Varuna Fellowship Program has been announced; and several graphic novelists will appear at the biennial Papercuts Comics Festival.

In awards news, the new biennial DANZ (Diversity in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand) Children’s Book Award has been established ‘to recognise, award, and celebrate diverse children’s fiction’; the winners of the 2023 Furphy Literary Award have been announced; ABR has announced the shortlist for the 2023 Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize; and the longlist for the $40,000 Mark and Evette Moran Nib Literary Award has been announced.

Overseas, private equity firm KKR is selling the audiobook publisher RBmedia to investment firm H.I.G Capital; Hachette parent company Lagardère Publishing’s sales grew 2.5% in the first six months of 2023, while higher costs pushed profits down; and Barbara Kingsolver and Darryl Pinckney have been awarded the James Tait Black Prizes for fiction and biography respectively.

The Australian Publishers Association Rising Star award recognises an emerging talent in Australian publishing who has spent less than 10 years in the industry. In the lead-up... Read more

Mark Rubbo retired as Readings MD on 28 July, after 50 years in the books business. Hardie Grant Books area manager, Victoria and Tasmania, Mandy... Read more

Sales Children’s/YA Affirm Press has sold North American rights to Pasta! (Felice Arena, illus by Beatrice Cerocchi) to Source Books and Portugese rights to Life... Read more

Top 10 Bestsellers Fourth Wing (Rebecca Yarros, Hachette) Yellowface (Rebecca F Kuang, The Borough Press) RecipeTin Eats: Dinner (Nagi Maehashi, Macmillan) Wifedom (Anna Funder, Hamish... Read more

In his opening chapter, Toby Walsh says Faking It is about ‘the artificiality of artificial intelligence’. At a time when venture capitalist-backed hustlers dominate the... Read more

Yen-Rong Wong’s Me, Her, Us encapsulates the Asian female body experience in a post-pandemic world. Wong oscillates between belonging and unbelonging in this bold-yet-anxious slice of Asian-Australian diaspora... Read more

Set in 1920s Sydney, The Sugar Palace is a pacy historical adventure with the perfect dose of romance, and shifts between the shadows of Sydney’s... Read more

Ned Kelly award-winning author and musician-songwriter Dave Warner revisits characters from his 1999 novel Big Bad Blood. Set two years after the events of that... Read more

Giovanni is the true story of a young Italian boy who migrates to Australia with his family in 1881 as one of the first Italian... Read more

With his parents in jail for drug dealing, high-school student Ethan goes to live with his Aunt Helen, a supermarket stacker who dreams of the... Read more

Emma Gourlay’s debut novel for readers aged 8–12 is the madcap adventure of Kip Boowitt, who lives on South Africa’s Table Mountain. Beleaguered by a... Read more

Children, and readers of all ages, delight in books where all is not as it seems: conventions of time and space may be disrupted; the... Read more

Author, comedian and sex worker Bella Green has died, aged 38. Green developed a stand-up and sketch comedy routine around her life as a sex... Read more

Books+Publishing is partnering with US trade news magazine Publishers Weekly to provide our subscribers with exclusive access to the weekly digital edition of PW magazine.... Read more

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Congratulations to Justin Sherriff from Dymocks Victoria Gardens for his outstanding achievement as the winner of the 2023 Dymocks Travel Bookseller of the Year, proudly sponsored by Lonely Planet.

The exciting announcement was made by Chris Zeiher, Senior Director of Trade Sales & Marketing at Lonely Planet, during the annual Dymocks Conference Gala Dinner held at the Hilton Hotel in Surfers Paradise on Tuesday, 1 August.

Justin’s dedication and profound knowledge of the travel category truly stood out and were duly recognised by his peers and industry experts. His hard work and passion have undoubtedly contributed to the success of Dymocks’ travel section, and this prestigious award is a well-deserved acknowledgment of his efforts.

Lonely Planet itself is celebrating an incredible milestone, marking 50 Years of Travel this year. In light of this and the resurgence of travel post-Covid, this inaugural award holds special significance. It not only celebrates Justin’s exceptional performance but also pays tribute to the resilient and hardworking Dymocks staff who have played a vital role in promoting the joy of travel through books.