Readings has announced the winners of the 2024 Readings Prize in each category and the winner of the Gab Williams Prize. The winning titles are:... Read more

Several books by Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand authors have been included in the 2024 White Ravens list for international children’s and youth literature. Among... Read more

Royal Zoological Society of NSW has announced the winners of the 2024 Whitley Awards, presented for outstanding publications that profile the unique wildlife of the... Read more

Dates and details for two forthcoming small festivals have been announced. Stella Day Out which took place in Sydney on 19 October, will run in... Read more

HarperCollins Australia has acquired ANZ rights to two books in The Tides of Ever series by Olivia O’Flynn, via Samuel Bernard of Zeitgeist Agency in... Read more

Allen & Unwin and Bolinda Audio have acquired print and audio book rights, respectively, to two titles in a new crime series by Jack Heath.... Read more

In the UK, US author writer Ross Perlin has won the £25,000 (A$48,543) British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding for Language City: The... Read more

The board of the Small Press Network has informed members that it will apply to Consumer Affairs Victoria to terminate the organisation in 30 days, unless a new board is formed in the interim. Meanwhile, the Australian Society of Authors has released general advice for authors affected by the Shawline liquidation, following the news that ‘an astounding 600 titles are affected and the authors have been added to the liquidator’s list of unsecured creditors’. And the dates and details of Stella Day Out events and the Australian Short Story festival have been announced.

In awards news this week, Edenglassie by Melissa Lucashenko (UQP) is the winner of the 2024 Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Award; the winners of the 2024 Chief Minister’s NT Book Awards and the 2024 Readings Prizes have been announced; and Melbourne author and illustrator Judith Rossell was announced as the recipient of the 2024 Albert Ullin Award.

In other awards news, Aotearoa New Zealand poets Megan Kitching and Robyn Maree Pickens are among prize recipients for the annual UK nature and environmental poetry award, the Laurel Prize; Garth Nix’s The Sinister Booksellers of Bath (A&U) was among the winning works at the 2024 Ditmar Awards; several children’s books are among the 2024 Whitley Award winners; and four recipients of funding through Creative Australia’s Arts and Disability Initiative, which supports 10 projects overall, are in a literary or adjacent field. Meanwhile two shortlists were announced over the past week: the 2024 Richell Prize for Emerging Writers; and the 2024 Nakata Brophy Prize for the best poem by a young Indigenous writer.

Overseas, several local works have been included on the 2024 White Ravens list of children’s books in Germany; a report by Nielsen BookData and GfK Entertainment, covering 16 territories in the first eight months of the year, has found sales in the fiction segment increased in 14 of the 16 territories surveyed—but of the countries surveyed, Aotearoa New Zealand saw the largest drop in overall book sales, reporting a 9.3% decline year-on-year; and Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues (Ross Perlin, Atlantic) has won the 2024 British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding.

In acquisitions news this week, HarperCollins Australia has acquired ANZ rights to two books in The Tides of Ever series by Olivia O’Flynn, via Samuel Bernard of Zeitgeist Agency in a ‘heated auction across several of the big five publishers’, for publication under the Voyager imprint; Black Inc. acquired ANZ rights to Kate Grenville’s nonfiction project Unsettled: A Journey Through Time and Place, with audio rights going to Bolinda; Allen & Unwin (A&U) acquired world rights to the memoir Chinese Parents Don’t Say I Love You by Candice Chung, via Grace Heifetz at Left Bank Literary, and ANZ rights to Ruins, a second novel by Amy Taylor; and A&U and Bolinda have acquired print and audio book rights, respectively, to two titles in a new crime series by Jack Heath. Affirm Press acquired world rights to the cookbook Cosy Vegan by Liz Douglas; and Transit Lounge acquired world rights to For One Visitor at a Time, the second novel by Melbourne-based author Monica Raszewski.

With multiple reports pointing to a decline in reading for pleasure among young people, school library and research professional Gabrielle Mace argues a change in... Read more

Sales Nonfiction Black Inc. has sold world English (ex ANZ) rights to Melanesia: Travels in Black Oceania (Hamish McDonald) to Hurst Publishers; North America rights to... Read more

Top 10 bestsellers Here One Moment (Liane Moriarty, Macmillan) The Valley (Chris Hammer, A&U) Intermezzo (Sally Rooney, Faber) We Solve Murders (Richard Osman, Viking) Juice... Read more

In 2024, amid widespread political polarisation, Robert Manne’s memoir, Robert Manne: A Political Memoir: Intellectual Combat in the Cold War and the Culture Wars, offers... Read more

Armed with a mandate to celebrate hope, courage and resilience, the 20 stories in the anthology Tomorrow There Will Be Sun venture near and far,... Read more

The book Yayoi Kusama from the National Gallery of Victoria captures the extraordinary 80-year legacy of the enigmatic artist, as showcased in the titular exhibition.... Read more

Costa’s Garden follows an illustrated Costa Georgiadis as he shares his expansive garden and flowers with a group of children, encouraging them to see the... Read more

Broadcaster and author George Negus has died, aged 82. Negus worked as a school teacher, before becoming a newspaper reporter, then moving to television journalism.... 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

Murdoch Books has acquired world rights to Parenting Different: How to Raise Your Neurodivergent Kids to Be Their Authentic, Awesome Selves by Sarah Hayden. Hayden is a social worker, parenting expert and mother of five, including Chloé Hayden, renowned actor and author of the bestselling Different Not Less.

‘We’re thrilled to publish Sarah’s groundbreaking book on parenting neurodivergent children and teens to be their best and most authentic selves,’ says Murdoch Books publisher Alexandra Payne. ‘Sarah has the professional expertise, personal experience and boundless enthusiasm to support parents of neurodivergent kids on their parenting journey. Her genuine warmth and reassurance shine through, and I know her approach will be absolutely life-changing for families.’

Hayden’s professional expertise focuses on neurodivergence, autism, ADHD and complex family dynamics. ‘As a social worker who speaks to parents and professionals about parenting neurodivergent kids every single day, I knew this book was something that was so desperately needed. I’ve written Parenting Different for every parent who wants to encourage and affirm their children for who they are, not who they’re meant to be.’ Hayden is neurodivergent herself, having been diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 48.

Parenting Different by Sarah Hayden will be published by Murdoch Books on 4 March 2025.