It might feel like an ordinary Tuesday, but for novelists, publishers and bookworms, today is Super Tuesday 2020, the biggest and best day in Australian books in a decade.
If you’re on the hunt for a new read, you’ll be spoilt for choice with over 15,000 books arriving at the Dymocks Sydney store alone – that’s twice as many releases as last year.
It’s really no surprise that Dymocks is stocking up on incredible novels. A recent Australia Council study found that despite COVID-19 disrupting the publishing industry and pushing back big release dates, Aussies are reading 36% more amidst the pandemic. The Australian Booksellers Association data also reports that book sales are up 7% this year-to-date.
With National Love Your Bookshop Day approaching this Sunday, October 3, here are 5 of the best Australian books of 2020 to nab before they fly off shelves in the lead-up to Christmas:
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Late in the night, 14-year-old Sam Watson steps onto a quiet overpass, climbs over the rail and looks down at the road far below. At the other end of the same bridge, an old man, Vic, smokes his last cigarette. Honeybee is a heartbreaking, life-affirming novel that throws us headlong into a world of petty thefts, extortion plots, botched bank robberies, daring dog rescues and one spectacular drag show.
A story about gifts that fall from the sky, curses we dig from the earth and the secrets we bury inside ourselves, All Our Shimmering Skies is an odyssey of true love and grave danger, of darkness and light, of bones and blue skies. It is a love letter to Australia and an ode to the art of looking up – a buoyant, beautiful and magical novel, abrim with warmth, wit and wonder.
Women and Leadership – Julia Gillard & Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
From their broad experience on the world stage in politics, economics and global not-for-profits, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Julia Gillard have some strong ideas about the impact of gender on the treatment of leaders. Women and Leadership takes a consistent and comprehensive approach to teasing out what is different for women leaders.
Gary Jubelin was one of Australia’s most celebrated homicide detective, leading investigations into the disappearance of William Tyrrell, the serial killing of three Aboriginal children in Bowraville and the brutal gangland murder of Terry Falconer. During his 34-year career, former Detective Chief Inspector Jubelin also ran the crime scene following the Lindt Cafe siege, investigated the death of Caroline Byrne and recovered the body of Matthew Leveson. In 2020, Jubelin was found guilty of illicitly recording conversations during the Tyrrell investigation. This is his story.
Set when the women’s suffrage movement was at its height and the Great War loomed, The Dictionary Of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. It’s a delightful, lyrical and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words, and the power of language to shape the world and our experience of it.
Matthew Reilly’s new book comes out next month. Its the sixth in a series, so not really a jumping point. But I grew up reading about things exploding thanks to the talented Mr Reilly, so thought I would mention it.
It’s really no surprise that Dymocks is stocking up on incredible novels. A recent Australia Council study found that despite COVID-19 disrupting the publishing industry and pushing back big release dates, Aussies are reading 36% more amidst the pandemic. The Australian Booksellers Association data also reports that book sales are up 7% this year-to-date.
Matthew Reilly’s new book comes out next month. Its the sixth in a series, so not really a jumping point. But I grew up reading about things exploding thanks to the talented Mr Reilly, so thought I would mention it.