Award Winners

Award-winning author-illustrator Drew Sheneman brings budding paleontologists the truth about dinosaurs in this informative and hilarious nonfiction picture book that will teach kids everything they didn't know (and never thought to ask) about their favorite subject-Dinosaurs!

Georgie Jutland is a mess. At forty, with her career in ruins, she finds herself stranded in White Point with a fisherman she doesn't love and two kids whose dead mother she can never replace. Her days have fallen into domestic tedium and social isolation. Her nights are a blur of vodka and pointless loitering in cyberspace. Leached of all confidence, Georgie has lost her way; she barely recognises herself. One morning, in the boozy pre-dawn gloom, she looks up from the computer screen to see a shadow lurking on the beach below, and a dangerous new element enters her life. Luther Fox, the local poacher. Jinx. Outcast… In prose as haunting and beautiful as its western setting, Dirt Music confirms Tim Winton's status as one of the finest novelists of his generation. '… an immense work, and its dominant inspiration is a passion for the natural world that makes Winton not just a writer … but a poet-prophet in the Romantic sense, and one of Australia's most precious cultural assets.' Weekend Australian 'Awe-inspiring … Sentence by sentence there are few finer stylists writing in English today.' Chicago Tribune

Director Gregor Jordan explores a sense of place, loneliness and loss in 'Dirt Music'. Georgie's living with a man she doesn't love and his young sons whose dead mother she can never replace. But a reckless moment leads to a life-changing encounter with Lu, an enigmatic loner, one-time musician and sometimes poacher, outcast from the community. Georgie will risk everything for this chance of love. Film is primarily shot in the Kimberley, Western Australia.

Eloise and her family must leave Cornwall on a treacherous sea journey to start a new life in 1870s colonial New Zealand. On the ship across, Eloise meets Lars, a Norwegian labourer travelling below decks, and their lives begin to intertwine. When her brother disappears, her father leaves and the family are left to fend for themselves in their new home, Eloise must find the strength to stand up for what she believes in and the people she loves.

Winner of the 2010 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction. With an introduction by Yann Martel.Abandoned in a big city at the onset of winter, a hungry four-year-old boy follows a stray dog to her lair. There in the rich smelly darkness, in the rub of hair, claws and teeth, he joins four puppies suckling at their mother’s teats. And so begins Romochka’s life as a dog. Weak and hairless, with his useless nose and blunt little teeth, Romochka is ashamed of what a poor dog he makes. But learning how to be something else…that’s a skill a human can master. And one day Romochka will have to learn how to be a boy. The story of the child raised by beasts is timeless. But in Dog Boy Eva Hornung has created such a vivid and original telling, so viscerally convincing, that it becomes not just new but definitive.Eva Hornung was born in Bendigo and now lives in Adelaide. As Eva Sallis, she is an award-winning writer of literary fiction and criticism: her first novel Hiam won the Australian/Vogel Literary Award in 1997 and the Nita May Dobbie Award in 1999. Her novel The Marsh Birds won the Asher Literary Award in 2005, and was shortlisted for numerous awards including the Age Book of the Year 2005, NSW Premier’s Literary Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. Dog Boy (2009) won the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction and was shortlisted for several other prizes.Yann Martel is the author of Life of Pi, the #1 international bestseller that won the 2002 Man Booker (among many other prizes), and was adapted to the screen in an Oscar-winning film by Ang Lee. Martel is also the award-winning author of The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios (which won the Journey Prize), Self, Beatrice and Virgil, and a book of recommended reading: 101 Letters to a Prime Minister.Praise for Dog Boy ‘Astonishing…a world of terrifying tactility—of teeth, teat, fur and claw…The novel is a strange, sombre, sobering triumph.’ Sydney Morning Herald‘Dog Boy is rich in interest and ideas…Hornung is wonderful on the physical characteristics, both beautiful and repulsive, of animals and children…Dog Boy unravels some of the reasons why humans and dogs are co-dependant and at the same time reinvents the idea of the wild child as an urban survivor, suggesting a future so menacing we prefer to ignore it.’ Age‘Hornung’s writing is beautiful and assured: her descriptions of this dog boy life are vivid and visceral and sensual and utterly compelling. She also writes about the dogs with breath-taking beauty—the penultimate climactic scene will squeeze your heart. Dog Boy is an ambitious concept, magnificently realised—you’ll never look at a dog in the same way again.’ Sunday Telegraph‘A grim and primal story of unnatural selection…This tough new novel represents an important shift in emphasis and a broadening of her vision as she continues her forensic investigation into the human condition.’ Australian‘Grotesque, moving and utterly astonishing.’ Herald Sun‘In exploring what it might be like to be a dog from a human perspective, Dog Boy sheds much light on what it is like to be human. Extraordinary, compelling and utterly believable.’ Yann Martel

Michael Shamanov is a man running away from life’s responsibilities. His marriage is over, he barely sees his son and he hasn’t seen his mother since banishing her to a nursing home two years earlier. A successful screen writer, Michael’s encounter with his mother’s nurse leads him to discover that the greatest story he’s never heard may lie with his dying mother. And perhaps it’s her life he’s been running away from and not his own. Is the past ever finished? Should we respect another’s silence? And if so, is it ever possible to understand and put to rest the strange idea of family that travels through the flesh?From the Miles Franklin shortlisted author of No One comes a haunting gem of family secrets and impossible decisions.John Hughes is based in Sydney. He has published six books, all acclaimed and highly awarded, including the National Biography Award and Premier’s Book Awards. His previous novels, The Remnants and Asylum were critically acclaimed, and in 2019, No One was shortlisted in the Miles Franklin Award 2020.

Hilarious, heartbreaking, provocative and affecting - Howard Jacobson's irresistible journalism reveals the Man Booker Prize-winning novelist in all his humanity. From the tiniest absurdities to the most universal joys and desolations, Jacobson writes with a thunder, passion and wit unmatched.

Amy and Johnny Novak have fled to a seaside town in northern New South Wales. They want a fresh start with their eleven-year-old son Sasha, and Amy is determined to shake off the legacy of Johnny’s criminal family.But it’s hard to outrun the Novaks. Are Amy and Johnny still keeping secrets from each other? And how did they get involved in a high-stakes game with Arturo Raoul De Leon, aka The Snake? Can Amy rise to the occasion to keep her family safe or will she be forced to become Johnny’s partner in crime?Loraine Peck’s The Second Son won the 2021 Best Debut Crime Fiction Ned Kelly Award and was shortlisted for two Davitt Awards and the Danger Award. With its character-driven plot, psychological finesse, humour and sparkling dialogue, The Double Bind is an enthralling sequel.From magician’s assistant to crime novelist, it’s all about mastering the art of subterfuge for Loraine Peck, whose love of crime fiction propelled her to write the kind of book she loves to read.The Second Son, Loraine’s debut novel, won the 2021 Ned Kelly Award for Best Debut Crime Fiction from the Australian Crime Writers Association. It was shortlisted for two Davitt Awards by Sisters in Crime and for a Danger Award by BAD Crime Sydney. The Double Bind, the sequel to The Second Son, will be out in April 2023.Loraine and her husband spend their time between Sydney and the Gold Coast.'An urban noir masterpiece. Street-wise, with crackling prose, this is a deep, rich mystery with family at its centre. It keeps all the promises of the best crime fiction on offer.’ Candice Fox, author of Fire with Fire‘Tight and tense…a wonderfully sharp-toothed crime thriller.' Christian White on The Second Son‘A tense, sinuous, fast-moving debut where hard answers are given to questions of honour and justice.’ Garry Disher on The Second Son

Every moonshadow elf child knows the scary stories of the Bloodmoon Huntress, the evil sorceress who steals your blood on the night of the harvest moon. Everyone also knows those legends aren't true. But for young Rayla, whose parents recently left her behind to fulfill their duty as members of the elite Dragonguard, this autumn is scarier than most. Her guardians, Runaan and Ethari, are still getting the hang of the whole parenting thing, and no-one will tell Rayla what Runaan does for a living. She spends most of her time exploring the forest outside the Silvergrove. When Rayla discovers a young Skywing elf in danger just hours before the Harvest Moon will rise, the scary stories become real. Can she stop the Huntress before the moon reaches its zenith?

‘Dying is bracing and beautiful, possessed of an extraordinary intellectual and moral rigor…Every human should read it.’ New York TimesCory Taylor wrote this remarkable book in the space of a few weeks before her death from melanoma-related cancer in July 2016. In a tremendous creative surge, as her body weakened, she described the experience of knowing she would soon die.Her powerful and beautifully written book is a clear-eyed account of the tangle of her feelings, her reflections on her life, her memories of the lives and deaths of her parents. She tells us why it was important to her to have the ability to choose the circumstances of her death.Dying: A Memoir is a breathtaking book about vulnerability and strength, courage and humility, anger and acceptance. It is a deeply affecting meditation on dying, but it is also a funny and wise tribute to life.Cory Taylor was born in Queensland in 1955. She was an award-winning novelist and screenwriter who also published short fiction and children’s books. Her first novel, Me and Mr Booker, won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Pacific Region) in 2012 and her second novel, My Beautiful Enemy, was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award in 2014. She died on 5 July 2016, a couple of months after Dying: A Memoir was published.‘The book rings louder in my imagination the more time I spend apart from it…Taylor’s prose is clear and direct, with flashes of surpassing loveliness…it has a startling offhand grace…Taylor writes that she will most miss her husband and the faces of her children. They will surely miss her, too. But it’s at least something — maybe a tiny bit lucky, even — that this gorgeous piece of her remains.’ New York Times ‘If a more open discussion of death is needed in the West, Taylor’s book is a manual for the task. It is full of wisdom and vulnerability; it is also profoundly reassuring. Dying, she repeatedly says, is deeply lonely. No one can do it with you. But this book might be a companion, made all the more solid by its lack of sentimentality and any other false comforts.’ Times Literary Supplement ‘A fine and sorrowful finale.’ Sydney Morning Herald‘What is truly profound about this book is that—though itought to be harrowing—it is astonishingly easy, if not strangely uplifting, toread. In part, this is because the narrative voice is so gentle, and tightlycontrolled. Every scene has a radiant quality; it glows.’ Conversation ‘…As this quietly remarkable book illustrates, that kind oflooking entails its own tribute to the sweetness of life.’ Radio Australia‘Unflinchingly honest…This deep meditation is beautifullywritten and destined to be an important piece of the conversation surroundingdeath. Taylor’s last testament to life is a welcome departing gift from athoughtful and inspired author.’ STARREDreview, Publishers Weekly‘An eloquent plea for a more humane approach to death and amoving meditation on the life that leads to that end.’ STARREDreview, Kirkus Reviews ‘Brave and funny, rare and honest.’ Bookseller UK