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 Winner 2023
Prophet Song 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.
The International Booker Prize Winner 2023
Time Shelter by
An enigmatic flaneur named Gaustine opens a 'clinic for the past' that offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer's sufferers: each floor reproduces a decade in minute detail, transporting patients back in time. As Gaustine's assistant, the unnamed narrator is tasked with collecting the flotsam and jetsam of the past, from 1960s furniture and 1940s shirt buttons to scents and even afternoon light. But as the rooms become more convincing, an increasing number of healthy people seek out the clinic as a 'time shelter', hoping to escape from the horrors of our present-- a development that results in an unexpected conundrum when the past begins to invade the present.
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
2023 Winner
Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens by
Welcome to Cinnamon Gardens, a home for those who are lost and the stories they treasure. Cinnamon Gardens Nursing Home is nestled in the quiet suburb of Westgrove, Sydney -- populated with residents with colourful histories, each with their own secrets, triumphs and failings. This is their safe place, an oasis of familiar delights -- a beautiful garden, a busy kitchen and a bountiful recreation schedule. But this ordinary neighbourhood is not without its prejudices. The serenity of Cinnamon Gardens is threatened by malignant forces more interested in what makes this refuge different rather than embracing the calm companionship that makes this place home to so many. As those who challenge the residents' existence make their stand against the nursing home with devastating consequences, our characters are forced to reckon with a country divided. Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens is about family and memory, community and race, but is ultimately a love letter to story-telling and how our stories shape who we are.
An Award For: Australian books of a high quality that have sold well at independent bookstores.
Voted by: Australian independent booksellers.
Indies Book of the Year
Runt by
Annie Shearer lives in the country town of Upson Downs with her best friend, an adopted stray dog called Runt. The two share a very special bond. After years evading capture, Runt is remarkably fast and agile, perfect for herding runaway sheep. But when a greedy local landowner puts her family's home at risk, Annie directs Runt's extraordinary talents towards a different pursuit - winning the Agility Course Grand Championship at the lucrative Krumpets Dog Show in London. However, there is a curious catch: Runt will only obey Annie's commands if nobody else is watching. With all eyes on them, Annie and Runt must beat the odds and the fastest dogs in the world to save her farm.
Indies Fiction Book of the Year
Horse by
Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamour of any racetrack. New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a 19th equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance. Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the horse - one studying the stallion's bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success. Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred, Lexington, who became America's greatest stud sire, Horse is an original, gripping, multi-layered reckoning with the legacy of enslavement and racism in America.
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
2023 Winner:
Demon Copperhead by
Demon Copperhead: a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, poverty isn't an idea, it's as natural as growing grass. For a generation growin gup at the heart of the modern opioid crisis, addiction isn't an abstraction - it's neighbours, parents and friends. 'Family ' could mean love, or reluctant foster care. Demon befriends us on this, his journey through the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities. Inspired by the unflinching truth-telling of David Copperfield, Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story.
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
Cold Enough For Snow by
A novel about the relationship between life and art, and between language and the inner world - how difficult it is to speak truly, to know and be known by another, and how much power and friction lies in the unsaid, especially between a mother and daughter. This is an elegant and subtle exploration of the mysteries of our relationships to others. A mother and daughter travel from abroad to meet in Tokyo: they walk along the canals through the autumn evenings, escape the typhoon rains, share meals in small cafes and restaurants, and visit galleries to see some of the city's most radical modern art. All the while, they talk: about the weather, horoscopes, clothes, and objects, about family, distance, and memory. But uncertainties abound. Who is really speaking here is it only the daughter? And what is the real reason behind this elliptical, perhaps even spectral journey? At once a careful reckoning and an elegy, this text questions whether any of us speak a common language, which dimensions can contain love, and what claim we have to truly know another's inner world.
People's Choice Awards
Astronomy: Sky Country by
n Astronomy: Sky Country, Karlie Noon and Krystal De Napoli explore the connections between Aboriginal environmental and cultural practices and the behaviour of the stars, and consider what must be done to sustain our dark skies, and the information they hold, into the future.
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.
2023 Book of the Year: Older Readers -Honour
Completely Normal by
Stella Wilde is secretly in love with the hottest guy in school, Isaac Calder. He seems to love her back, but there's a problem – he already has a girlfriend, the gorgeous Grace Reyes. When Isaac is killed in a car accident, the entire school is turned upside down with grief. And while Grace can mourn publicly, Stella has to hide her feelings to stop people from finding out about her and Isaac being more than friends. But how long can Stella keep lying – to herself and everyone else? And when the truth finally comes out, how will it affect her newfound friendship with Grace?
Dymocks Booksellers nominated their favourite book published in 2023, and the winner was selected from this list.
An Award for: Australian women, writing Literary fiction and non-fiction.
The Prize: $50,000.
2023 Winner
The Jaguar by
With electrifying boldness, Sarah Holland-Batt confronts what it means to be mortal in an astonishing and deeply humane portrait of a father's Parkinson's Disease, and a daughter forged by grief. Opening and closing with startling elegies set in the charged moments before and after a death, and fearlessly probing the body's animal endurance, appetites and metamorphoses, The Jaguar is marked by Holland-Batt's lyric intensity and linguistic mastery, along with a stark new clarity of voice.
An Award For: distinguished fiction by an American author.
Previous Winners Include: Donna Tartt, Cormac Mccarthy, Jeffrey Eugenides.
2023 Winners:
Trust by
Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly endless wealth, all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1938 novel that all of New York seems to have read. But there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit. Hernan Diaz's Trust elegantly puts these competing narratives into conversation with each other, and in tension with the perspective of one woman bent on disentangling fact from fiction.
Demon Copperhead by
Demon Copperhead: a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, poverty isn't an idea, it's as natural as growing grass. For a generation growin gup at the heart of the modern opioid crisis, addiction isn't an abstraction - it's neighbours, parents and friends. 'Family ' could mean love, or reluctant foster care. Demon befriends us on this, his journey through the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities. Inspired by the unflinching truth-telling of David Copperfield, Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story.
An Award for: Australian books of all persuasions.
Voted by: Australian ‘Book makers’: authors, editors, publishing professionals and retailers.
Small Publishers Book of the Year
The Dreaming Path by
he Dreaming Path has always been there, but in the modern-day world, it can be hard to find. There are so many demands on us -- family, health, bills, a mortgage, a career -- that it can be hard to remember what's most important: you. It's time to reconnect with your story. Through conversations, exercises, Dreamtime stories and key messages, Paul Callaghan and Uncle Paul Gordon will sit you around the fire and share knowledge that reveals the power of Aboriginal spirituality as a profound source of contentment and well-being for anyone willing to listen.
International Book of the Year
Lessons in Chemistry by
Set in 1960s California, this is the hilarious, idiosyncratic and uplifting story of a female scientist whose career is constantly derailed by the idea that a woman's place is in the home, only to find herself starring as the host of America's most beloved TV cooking show. Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it's the 1960s and despite the fact that she is a scientist, her peers are very unscientific when it comes to equality. The only good thing to happen to her on the road to professional fulfillment is a run-in with her super-star colleague Calvin Evans (well, she stole his beakers.) The only man who ever treated her- and her ideas- as equal, Calvin is already a legend and Nobel nominee. He's also awkward, kind and tenacious. Theirs is true chemistry. But as events are never as predictable as chemical reactions, three years later Elizabeth Zott is an unwed, single mother (did we mention it's the early 60s??) and the star of America's most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth's singular approach to cooking ('take one pint of H2O and add a pinch of sodium chloride') and independent example are proving revolutionary. Because Elizabeth isn't just teaching women how to cook, she's teaching them how to change the status quo.--
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