Award Winners

"The thing I am trying to get at is what made Jack different from me. Different all through our lives, I mean, and in a special sense, not just older or nobler or braver or less clever."David and Jack Meredith grow up in a patriotic suburban Melbourne household during the First World War, and go on to lead lives that could not be more different. Through the story of the two brothers, George Johnston created an enduring exploration of two Australian myths: that of the man who loses his soul as he gains worldly success, and that of the tough, honest Aussie battler, whose greatest ambition is to serve his country during the war. Acknowledged as one of the true Australian classics, My Brother Jack is a deeply satisfying, complex and moving literary masterpiece.David Meredith′s story continues in the sequels Clean Straw for Nothing and A Cartload of Clay.

A novel of the cruelty of war, tenuousness of life and the impossibility of love.August, 1943. In the despair of a Japanese POW camp on the Thai-Burma death railway, Australian surgeon Dorrigo Evans is haunted by his love affair with his uncle's young wife two years earlier. Struggling to save the men under his command from starvation, from cholera, from beatings, he receives a letter that will change his life forever. This savagely beautiful novel is a story about the many forms of love and death, of war and truth, as one man comes of age, prospers, only to discover all that he has lost.'The Narrow Road to the Deep North is a big, magnificent novel of passion and horror and tragic irony. Its scope, its themes and its people all seem to grow richer and deeper in significance with the progress of the story, as it moves to its extraordinary resolution. It's by far the best new novel I've read in ages.' - Patrick McGrath 'Magnificent.' -- Michael Gorra, The New York Times'Beyond comparison . . . an immense achievement . . . Wilfred Owen wrote of his Great War verse: "My subject is war, and the pity of war. The poetry is in the pity." Flanagan's triumph is to find poetry without any pity at all.' - Geordie Williamson, The Australian'A story of war and star-crossed lovers, the novel is also a profound meditation on life and time, memory and forgetting . . . a magnificent achievement.' - Katharine England, Adelaide Advertiser'A masterpiece . . . The Narrow Road is an extraordinary piece of writing and a high point in an already distinguished career.' - Michael Williams, The Guardian

Karly Lane's page-turning, absolutely delightful 25th rural romance from this bestselling author with over 600,000 books sold. Lottie Fairchild has two loves: history and, well, history. She's fascinated by the legends of love and curses handed down through her own family. Owner of a successful antique shop in her small country town Banalla, Lottie is on the committee that is about to launch a new festival celebrating the town history and their local figure of fame, gentleman bushranger Jack McNally. Altogether, Lottie is happy. Mostly. But when festival guest speaker Professor Damian Loxley arrives, a week early and on a motorbike, Lottie is caught off guard. As a professor of history and author of books, Damian arrives keen to research Jack McNally and one of history's cold cases: the mysterious disappearance of a colonial lady. But is this search going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack? And then he meets Lottie Fairchild... and she just happens to be the perfect local guide. Little do they realise what treasures they'll discover and truths they'll unearth, or that curses can still be found in both the past and the present. Ultimately, can they both find happiness?'... a compelling, fast-paced and engaging read with heart and substance.' BETTER READING 'A seriously wonderful book... perfect if you are looking for something to make you smile and touch your heart.' BEAUTY AND LACE 'Heart-warming... an enjoyable read that will be warmly welcomed by fans of Australian romance writing.' CANBERRA WEEKLY.

"Swedish police inspector Ann Lindell finally returns in internationally bestselling and award-winning Kjell Eriksson's newest novel. Police inspector Ann Lindell has left the Uppsala police and is living a quiet life, producing local cheese in a small town in Uppland. But life in the country is not as idyllic as it seems. On New Year's Eve someone sets fire to the former village school which is now a home for asylum seekers, and three people are killed. Ann Lindell's investigative instincts come back to life and soon she takes on the case. She is contacted by a person who has been involved in a previous investigation and who wants to warn her. His message is short and clear: Many will die. A few weeks later a bomb explodes in a suburb of Stockholm. Kjell Eriksson wrote seven highly acclaimed novels about Ann Lindell, beginning with award-winner The Princess of Burundi, and now, after ten years, he returns to the Uppsala region and his sympathetic police inspector. The Night of the Fire is the first of two new volumes featuring Ann Lindell"--

It is 1953. Thomas Wazhushk is the night watchman at the first factory to open near the Turtle Mountain Reservation in rural North Dakota. He is also a prominent Chippewa Council member, trying to understand a new bill that is soon to be put before Congress. The US Government calls it an 'emancipation' bill; but it isn't about freedom - it threatens the rights of Native Americans to their land, their very identity. How can he fight this betrayal? Unlike most of the girls on the reservation, Pixie - 'Patrice' - Paranteau has no desire to wear herself down on a husband and kids. She works at the factory, earning barely enough to support her mother and brother, let alone her alcoholic father who sometimes returns home to bully her for money. But Patrice needs every penny to get if she's ever going to get to Minnesota to find her missing sister Vera.

"It is 2001. 438 refugees sit in a boat called Tampa off the shoreline of Australia, while the TV and radio scream out that the country is being flooded, inundated, overrun by migrants. Antonio Martone, once a migrant himself, has been forced to retire, his wife has moved in with the woman next door, his daughter runs off with strange men, his deadbeat son is hiding in the garden smoking marijuana. Amid his growing paranoia, the ghost of his dead friend shows up and commands him to paint ‘No More Boats’ in giant letters across his front yard. The Prime Minister of Australia keeps telling Antonio that we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstance in which they come, Antonio’s not sure he wants to think about all those things that led him to get on a boat and come to Australia in the first place. A man and a nation unravel together."--Back cover.

A compact masterpiece dedicated to the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich--Julian Barnes's first novel since his best-selling, Booker Prize-winning The Sense of an Ending. 1936: Shostakovich, just thirty, fears for his livelihood and his life. Stalin, hitherto a distant figure, has taken a sudden interest in his work and denounced his latest opera. Now, certain he will be exiled to Siberia (or, more likely, shot dead on the spot), he reflects on his predicament, his personal history, his parents, various women and wives, his children all of those hanging in the balance of his fate. And though a stroke of luck prevents him from becoming yet another casualty of the Great Terror, for years to come he will be held fast under the thumb of despotism: made to represent Soviet values at a cultural conference in New York City, forced into joining the Party, and compelled, constantly, to weigh appeasing those in power against the integrity of his music. Barnes elegantly guides us through the trajectory of Shostakovich's career, at the same time illuminating the tumultuous evolution of the Soviet Union. The result is both a stunning portrait of a relentlessly fascinating man and a brilliant meditation on the meaning of art and its place in society.

WINNER OF THE AUSTRALIAN/VOGEL'S LITERARY AWARD In those first moments, that admission felt precious to me: it was something that I alone had been deemed worthy enough to carry and I was grateful. I was grateful to finally know, but I still couldn't speak. Something was wrong, she knew it, but she was entirely unprepared for what he would tell her. Viewed through the lens of a relationship breakdown after one partner discloses to the other that they are transgender, this autofiction spans eighteen months: from the moments of first discovery, through the eventual disintegration of their partnership, to the new beginnings of independence. In diaries and letters, Now That I See You unfolds a love story that, while often messy and uncomfortable, is a poignant and personal exploration of identity, gender, love and grief. 'An insightful novel . . . absorbing from the start.' Hsu-Ming Teo, previous winner of The Australian/Vogel's Literary Award for Love and Vertigo 'A psychological masterclass in exploring why and how we become who we are and what that means for the people closest to us.' STEPHEN ROMEI, The Australian

I have knocked on flyscreens and said to mothers of kidnapped toddlers, ‘Don’t you feel guilty for leaving your child in the front yard alone?’ I have shamed them to tears for the photographer. I have gatecrashed funerals, linked innocent corpses to local crime syndicates. Or feigned empathy to the grief-stricken to make copy from their hard-luck stories. I enjoyed the kudos of my name beneath headlines on front pages and became used to the heartlessness as if blank inside. I was doing it for my family—it was worth the cruelty.Callum Smith—Wordsmith, Words for short—is a newspaper journalist of the old school. He knows how to write a story that sings, knows all the tricks of the tabloid trade. And he likes to drink with his colleagues, sometimes to flirt dangerously with young women.When his marriage blows up after a night of drinking goes way too far, Words is forced to leave the family home. Desperate to impress his estranged wife and feckless teenage son, he quits his job, taking a pay cut to work with a new online publication covering local crime. There the plum role of editor will soon be his, he reasons.To Words, ‘Honesty is a thief—it steals your life.’ Better to do whatever it takes to get back in someone’s good books. And that is what he sets out to do, in a series of ever more calamitous, destructive and amoral adventures.Will the irredeemable Words win back his family? Or is comeuppance around the corner? A satirical novel by Miles Franklin Literary Award shortlisted author Craig Sherborne, Off the Record stylishly skewers tabloid journalism and male vanity.Craig Sherborne’s memoir Hoi Polloi (2005) was shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s and Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. The follow-up, Muck (2007), won the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award for Non-fiction. Craig’s first novel, The Amateur Science of Love (2011), won the Melbourne Prize for Literature’s Best Writing Award, and was shortlisted for a Victorian Premier’s Literary Award and a NSW Premier’s Literary Award. His second novel, Tree Palace (2014), was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award.Craig has also written two volumes of poetry, Bullion (1995) and Necessary Evil (2005), and a verse drama, Look at Everything Twice for Me (1999). He lives outside Melbourne.‘It’s pacy, sleek, muscled—a mesmerising portrait of how a creep of a guy (who can look very much like you or me) can weave a web in which he finds himself.’ Peter Craven, Australian‘Sherborne’s talents with narrative and poetry combine to produce a striking fiction...offering a unique, vivid portrait of his characters. With the crystallisation and compression of poetry, Sherborne explores ideas of property, freedom and loyalty, and produces a novel as beautiful in its conjunctions as the chandelier swinging over its landscapes.’ Australian on Tree Palace'A riveting piece of writing that is liable to transfix any reader who gets past the opening chapter...Sherborne is a breathtaking writer because he writes of unspeakable things with a kind of affectless gaucherie that dazzles the mind...this is an engulfing, heart-stopping book - a performance that dazzles the eyes and leaves the reader gasping for air.' Age on The Amateur Science of Love

Amid the furious ocean there was no human sound on deck: some people standing, watching the wave, but no one capable of words.On the Java Ridge, skipper Isi Natoli and a group of Australian surf tourists are anchored beside an idyllic reef off the Indonesian island of Dana.In the Canberra office of Cassius Calvert, Minister for Border Integrity, a Federal election looms and (not coincidentally) a hardline new policy is being announced regarding maritime assistance to asylum-seeker vessels in distress.A few kilometres away from Dana, the Takalar is having engine trouble. Among the passengers fleeing from persecution are Roya and her mother, and Roya’s unborn sister.The storm now closing in on the Takalar and the Java Ridge will mean catastrophe for them all.With On the Java Ridge Jock Serong, bestselling author of The Rules of Backyard Cricket, brings us a literary novel with the pace and tension of a political thriller—and some of the most compelling, heartstopping writing about the sea since Patrick O’Brian.Jock Serong’s most recent novel, On the Java Ridge, a fast-paced political thriller, was published in 2017. His debut novel Quota won the 2015 Ned Kelly Award for Best First Crime Novel. The Rules of Backyard Cricket is nominated for a 2018 Edgar Allan Poe Award and was shortlisted for the 2016 Victorian Premier's Literary Award. Jock teaches law and writes feature articles in the surfing media and for publications such as The Guardian and Slow Living. He lives with his wife and four children in Port Fairy, Victoria.‘Terrifying, compelling.’ Australian Book Review‘Taut and impressive.’ Age‘You might want to clear the decks before you start Jock Serong’s third thriller, because the odds are you won’t be able to put it down.’ SA Weekend‘With this book, Serong cements his growing reputation as the thinking person’s adventure writer. On the Java Ridge is such a strong piece of writing on so many levels. Andrew Bolt would hate it!’ Readings‘Expertly written, vast in scope…A compelling literary political thriller and a must-read commentary on the Australian political environment and its treatment of refugees.’ Better Read Than Dead‘On the Java Ridge cements Serong’s place as one of Australia’s most innovative and ambitious crime writers.’ NZ Listener‘This is the mastery of Serong’s novel, understanding that fictional dystopias are at their most profound when they take the everyday and tilt it towards the darkness…it is a deeply considered novel that steers us to the logical conclusion of an entrenched system rooted equally in brutality and silence.’ Monthly‘The best surf-related fiction I have read in a long, long time, possibly ever—Jock Serong’s riveting On the Java Ridge.’ Swell Net‘The rescue and the scenes that follow it are the real heart of the book, and they are exceptional. Serong invests the chaos and confusion of the wreck and its bloody aftermath with a visceral power that makes for confronting but exhilarating reading.’ Australian‘Serong exhibits impressive control, leaping between three vastly different viewpoints and delivering a fevered crescendo as compassion competes with political survival.’ NZ Listener