An Award For: The best English language book of the year and the best translated fiction book of the year.
Voted By: A small panel of judges, that changes each year.
The Booker Prize Winners 2024
Orbital - 2024 Book Prize Winner by
Winner of The Booker Prize 2024
A team of astronauts in the International Space Station collect meteorological data, conduct scientific experiments and test the limits of the human body. But mostly they observe. Together they watch their silent blue planet, circling it sixteen times, spinning past continents and cycling through seasons, taking in glaciers and deserts, the peaks of mountains and the swells of oceans. Endless shows of spectacular beauty witnessed in a single day.
Yet although separated from the world they cannot escape its constant pull. News reaches them of the death of a mother, and with it comes thoughts of returning home. They look on as a typhoon gathers over an island and people they love, in awe of its magnificence and fearful of its destruction.
The fragility of human life fills their conversations, their fears, their dreams. So far from earth, they have never felt more part - or protective - of it. They begin to ask, what is life without earth? What is earth without humanity?
Kairos - Winner of the 2024 International Booker Prize by
Kairos tells the story of the romance begun in East Berlin at the end of the 1980s when nineteen-year-old Katharina meets by chance a married writer in his fifties named Hans. Their passionate yet difficult long-running affair takes place against the background of the declining GDR, through the upheavals wrought by its dissolution in 1989 and then what comes after. Erpenbeck describes the path of the two lovers, as Katharina grows up and tries to come to terms with a not always ideal romance, even as a whole world with its own ideology disappears.
Prophet Song (2023 Booker Prize Winner) by
On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother-of-four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find the GNSB on her doorstep. Two officers from Ireland's newly formed secret police want to speak with her husband, Larry, a trade unionist for the Teachers' Union of Ireland. Things are falling apart. Ireland is in the grip of a government that is taking a turn towards tyranny. And as the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, Eilish finds herself caught within the nightmare logic of a collapsing society - assailed by unpredictable forces beyond her control and forced to do whatever it takes to keep her family together.
An Award For: A novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases.
The Prize: $60,000
2024 Winner
Praiseworthy by
Praiseworthy is an epic set in the north of Australia, told with the richness of language and scale of imagery for which Alexis Wright has become renowned. In a small town dominated by a haze cloud, which heralds both an ecological catastrophe and a gathering of the ancestors, a crazed visionary seeks out donkeys as the solution to the global climate crisis and the economic dependency of the Aboriginal people. His wife seeks solace from his madness in following the dance of butterflies and scouring the internet to find out how she can seek repatriation for her Aboriginal/Chinese family to China. One of their sons, called Aboriginal Sovereignty, is determined to commit suicide. The other, Tommyhawk, wishes his brother dead so that he can pursue his dream of becoming white and powerful. This is a novel which pushes allegory and language to its limits, a cry of outrage against oppression and disadvantage, and a fable for the end of days.
An Award For: Australian books of a high quality that have sold well at independent bookstores.
Voted by: Australian independent booksellers.
Indies Fiction Book of the Year
Edenglassie by
When Mulanyin meets the beautiful Nita in Edenglassie, their saltwater people still outnumber the British. As colonial unrest peaks, Mulanyin dreams of taking his bride home to Yugambeh Country, but his plans for independence collide with white justice. Two centuries later, fiery activist Winona meets Dr Johnny. Together they care for obstinate centenarian Grannie Eddie, and sparks fly, but not always in the right direction. What nobody knows is how far the legacies of the past will reach into their modern lives.
Indies Non-Fiction Book of the Year
Killing For Country by
The author was shocked to discover his forebears served with the Native Police, the most brutal force in Australian history. He brings his experience as an investigative journalist, biographer and political analyst to the story of a colonial family that seized hundreds of thousands of acres of land and led Aboriginal troopers into bloody massacres in the most violent years of the Native Police. This book is a unique history of the making of Australia -- a family saga of fortunes made and lost, of politics and power in the colonial world, and the violence let loose by squatters and their London bankers as they began their long war for the possession of this country, a contest still unresolved in today's Australia.
An Award For The Best Australian Young Adult Book of the Year.
Previous Winners: Include Erin Gough, Eleni Hale and Zana Fraillon.
2024 Readings YA Book Prize
We Didn't Think It Through by
The thought comes to me: This is how I die. Dally is going to lose control and crash us into a pole or a house and we will be killed on impact.
The justice system characterises Jamie Langton as a 'danger to society', but he's just an Aboriginal kid, trying to find his way through adolescence.
Jamie lives in Dalton's Bay with Aunty Dawn and Uncle Bobby. He spends his downtime hanging out with his mates, Dally and Lenny. Mark Cassidy and his white mates - the Footy Heads - take every opportunity they can to bully Jamie and his friends. On Lenny's last night in town before moving to Sydney, after another episode of racist harassment, Jamie, Dally and Lenny decide to retaliate by vandalising Mark Cassidy's car. And when they discover the keys are in the ignition... Dally changes the plan. Soon they are all in Mark Cassidy's stolen car cruising through town, aiming to take it for a quick spin, then dump it.
But it's a bad plan. And as a consequence, Jamie ends up in the youth justice system where he must find a way to mend his relationships with himself, his friends, his family and his future.
Winner of the Readings New Australian Fiction Prize 2024
Thanks for Having Me by
Mary Anne is painfully aware that she's not a good wife and not a good mother, and is slowly realising that she no longer wants to play either of those roles. One morning, she walks out of the family home in Wollongong, leaving her husband and teenage daughters behind. Wounded by her mother's abandonment, adolescent Vivian searches for meaning everywhere: true crime, boys' bedrooms, Dolly magazine, a six-pack of beer. But when Vivian grows up and finds herself unhappily married and miserable in motherhood, she too sees no choice but to start over. Her daughter Evie is left reeling, and wonders what she could have done to make her mother stay.
Emma Darragh's unflinching, tender and darkly funny debut explores what we give to our families and what we take from them-whether we mean to or not. The stories in Thanks for Having Me are like a shoebox full of old photos: they aren't in chronological order and few are labelled. Looking at a family this way reveals things we don't see when these moments are neatly organised. Except that within these pages are a few moments you wouldn't want to hold up to the light.
An Award For: The best book in English by a woman throughout the world.
Previous Winners Include: Zadie Smith, Barbara Kingsolver, Chimamamanda Ngozi Adichie, Kate Grenville
2024 Winner:
Brotherless Night by
Sixteen-year-old Sashi wants to become a doctor. But over the next decade, as a vicious civil war subsumes Sri Lanka, her dream takes her on a different path as she watches those around her, including her four beloved brothers and their best friend, get swept up in violent political ideologies and their consequences. She must ask herself: is it possible for anyone to move through life without doing harm? And, when the wrong person asks you to do the right thing, would you do it?
An Award For: Australian fiction, non-fiction, drama, young adult and poetry.
The Prize: Category winners receive $20,000 whilst the overall winner receives $100,000 in prize money.
Victorian Prize For Literature 2024
Chinese Fish by
When Ping leaves Hong Kong to live in the South Island of Aotearoa New Zealand, she discovers that life in the Land of the Long White Cloud is not the prosperous paradise she was led to believe it would be. Every day she works in a rat-infested shop frying fish, and every evening she waits for her wayward husband, armed with a vacuum cleaner to 'suck all the bad thing out'. Her four children are a brood of monolingual aliens. Eldest daughter Cherry struggles with her mother's unhappiness and the responsibility of caring for her younger siblings, especially the rage-prone, meat-cleaver-wielding Baby Joseph.
Prize for Young Adults 2024
A Hunger of Thorns by
Maude is the daughter of witches. She spent her childhood running wild with her best friend, Odette, weaving stories of girls who slayed dragons and saved princes. Then Maude grew up and lost her magic -- and her best friend. Storytelling is her only gift that remains. Odette always hungered for forbidden, dangerous magic, and two weeks ago she went searching for it. Now she's missing, and everyone believes she's dead. Everyone except Maude. Maude is sure she can find Odette inside the ruins of Sicklehurst, an abandoned power plant built over an ancient magical forest –a place nobody else seems to remember is there. The danger is, nobody knows what remains inside Sicklehurst, either. And every good story is sure to have a monster.
An Award For: The best Australian Children's books of the year.
Voted By: The CBCA, a non for profit, volunteer run organisation which aims to engage the community with literature for young Australians.
CBCA Book of the Year - Older Readers - Winner
Grace Notes by
Grace Dalfinch is a talented violinist who longs to play contemporary music in bars, but her mum forbids her. James Crux is an aspiring street artist who promised his dad he wouldn't paint in public until he's finished school. When Crux witnesses Grace's impromptu performance on a deserted tram, he's inspired to paint her and her violin; and when Grace stumbles across her portrait in a Melbourne alley by an anonymous street artist, she sets out to find its creator.
Dymocks Booksellers nominated their favourite book published in 2024 and the winner is:
The Ministry of Time by 
Winners of the Historical Novel Society Australia in 2024:
Adult Category - Edenglassie by Melissa Lucashenko
Children and Young Adult Winner - Spies in the Sky by Beverley McWilliams.
Spies in the Sky by
Royal Blue is a royal racing pigeon from a long line of champions. Every morning he wakes in his comfortable loft at Sandringham House, eats the very best seeds and spends the day training with his best friend to be the fastest and strongest pigeon in Britain.
But there’s a war going on, and things are changing. Then one day the King himself comes to the loft and chooses Blue for a very special assignment.
As Blue goes on missions, helping with rescues, carrying secret messages and facing dangers he never could have imagined, one thing will become clear: never underestimate a pigeon.
An Award for: Australian women, writing Literary fiction and non-fiction.
The Prize: $50,000.
2024 Winner
Praiseworthy by
Praiseworthy is an epic set in the north of Australia, told with the richness of language and scale of imagery for which Alexis Wright has become renowned. In a small town dominated by a haze cloud, which heralds both an ecological catastrophe and a gathering of the ancestors, a crazed visionary seeks out donkeys as the solution to the global climate crisis and the economic dependency of the Aboriginal people. His wife seeks solace from his madness in following the dance of butterflies and scouring the internet to find out how she can seek repatriation for her Aboriginal/Chinese family to China. One of their sons, called Aboriginal Sovereignty, is determined to commit suicide. The other, Tommyhawk, wishes his brother dead so that he can pursue his dream of becoming white and powerful. This is a novel which pushes allegory and language to its limits, a cry of outrage against oppression and disadvantage, and a fable for the end of days.
An Award For: distinguished fiction by an American author.
Previous Winners Include: Donna Tartt, Cormac Mccarthy, Jeffrey Eugenides.
2024 Winner:
Night Watch by
In 1874, in the wake of the War, erasure, trauma, and namelessness haunt civilians and veterans, renegades and wanderers, freedmen and runaways. Twelve-year-old ConaLee and her mother, Eliza, who hasn't spoken in more than a year, arrive at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in West Virginia, delivered to the hospital's entrance by a war veteran who has forced himself into their lives. There, far from family, a beloved neighbour, and the mountain home they knew, they try to reclaim their lives. The omnipresent vagaries of war and race rise to the surface as we learn their backstory: their flight to the highest mountain ridges of western Virginia; the disappearance of ConaLee's father, who left for the war and never returned. Meanwhile in the asylum, they begin to find a new path. ConaLee pretends to be her mother's maid; Eliza responds slowly to treatment. They get swept up in the life of the facility-the mystery behind the man they call the Night Watch; the child called Weed; the fearsome woman who runs the kitchen; the remarkable doctor at the head of the institution.
An Award for: Australian books of all persuasions.
Voted by: Australian ‘Book makers’: authors, editors, publishing professionals and retailers.
Literary Fiction Book of the Year
Lola in the Mirror by
A girl and her mother have been on the run for sixteen years, from police and the monster they left in their kitchen with a knife in his throat. They've found themselves a home inside a van with four flat tyres parked in a scrapyard by the edge of the Brisbane River. The girl has no name because names are dangerous when you're on the run. But the girl has a dream. A vision of a life as an artist of international acclaim. A life outside the grip of the Brisbane underworld drug queen 'Lady' Flora Box. A life of love with the boy who's waiting for her on the bridge that stretches across a flooding, deadly river. A life beyond the bullet that has her name on it. And now that the storm clouds are rising, there's only one person who can help make her dreams come true. That person is Lola and she carries all the answers. But to find Lola, the girl with no name must first do one of the hardest things we can ever do. She must look in the mirror.
International Book of the Year
Fourth Wing by
Twenty year old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general - also known as her tough-as-talons mother - has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders. But when you're smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away . . . because dragons don't bond to 'fragile' humans. They incinerate them. With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother's daughter - like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant. She'll need every edge of wits that can give her just to see the next sunrise. Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret. Alliances will be forged. Lives will be lost. Traitors will become allies . . . or even lovers. But sleep with one eye open because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.
An Award For: Lifetime contribution to literature.
Previous Winners Include: T.S. Eliot, Toni Morrison, Ernest Hemmingway, Doris Lessing, Patrick White.
2024 Nobel Laureate for Literature: Han Kang
The Vegetarian by
Yeong-hye and her husband are ordinary people. He is an office worker with moderate ambitions and mild manners; she is an uninspired but dutiful wife. The acceptable flatline of their marriage is interrupted when Yeong-hye, seeking a more 'plant-like' existence, decides to become a vegetarian, prompted by grotesque recurring nightmares. In South Korea, where vegetarianism is almost unheard-of and societal mores are strictly obeyed, Yeong-hye's decision is a shocking act of subversion. Her passive rebellion manifests in ever more bizarre and frightening forms, leading her bland husband to self-justified acts of sexual sadism. His cruelties drive her towards attempted suicide and hospitalisation. She unknowingly captivates her sister's husband, a video artist. She becomes the focus of his increasingly erotic and unhinged artworks, while spiralling further and further into her fantasies of abandoning her fleshly prison and becoming - impossibly, ecstatically - a tree.
We Could Be Something by
Part coming-out story.
Part falling-in-love story.
Part falling-apart story.
Harvey's dads are splitting up. It's been on the cards for a while, but it's still sudden. Woken-by-his-father-to-catch-a-red-eye sudden. Now he's restarting his life in a new city, living above a cafe with the extended Greek family he barely knows.
Sotiris is a rising star. At seventeen, he's already achieved his dream of publishing a novel. When his career falters, a cute, wise-cracking bookseller named Jem upends his world.
Harvey and Sotiris's stories converge on the same street in Darlinghurst, in this beautifully heartfelt novel about how our dreams shape us, and what they cost us.
Anam by
A grandson tries to learn the family story. But what kind of story is it? Is it a prison memoir, about the grandfather held without charge or trial by a revolutionary government? Is it an oral history of the grandmother left behind to look after the children? A love story? Or a ghost story – a mystery to be solved? Moving from 1930s Hanoi through a series of never-ending wars and displacements to Saigon, Paris, Melbourne and Cambridge, Anam is a novel about memory and inheritance, colonialism and belonging, home and exile. Anam blends fiction and essay, theory and everyday life to imagine that which has been repressed, left out, and forgotten. The grandson mines his family and personal stories to turn over ideas that resonate with all of us around place and home, legacy and expectation, ambition and sacrifice. As he sifts through letters, photographs, government documents and memories, he has his own family to think about: a partner and an infant daughter. Is there a way to remember the past that creates a future for them? Or does coming home always involve a certain amount of forgetting?
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