Vortex by Rodney Hall wins The Age Book of the Year fiction prize

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Vortex by Rodney Hall wins The Age Book of the Year fiction prize

10 May 2025

Vortex, by Queensland based Australian author Rodney Hall, has won the fiction prize in The Age Book of the Year award for 2025.

The two times winner of the Miles Franklin literary award, says the basis for his latest novel were some pages for a book he started writing, but later gave up on, in 1971. It pays to hold onto those old manuscripts, even the ones you don’t like, or thought you didn’t.

Lech Blaine, also living in Queensland, won the non-fiction prize, with his memoir Australian Gospel.

The announcement of the winners coincided with the opening of this year’s Melbourne Writers Festival (MWF), on Thursday. The Age Book of the Year awards have a story worthy of a novel themselves. They were first presented in 1974, by The Age newspaper, for fiction and non-fiction writing. In 1993 a poetry award, the Dinny O’Hearn Prize was added.

In 1998, the awards became a feature of the MWF, until they were ceased all together in 2013. However, in 2021 the award was rebooted, but for fiction only. Then in 2022, an award for non-fiction was introduced (or should that be reintroduced?).

The best books of the twenty-first century, so far, according to Kirkus Reviews

2 May 2025

Kirkus Reviews, an American literary publication, founded by teacher and editor Virginia Kirkus in 1933, has published a list of the best books — so far — of the twenty-first century.

It alarms me, as somewhat of a book reader, that I have not read even one of the fiction titles they list. I have seen a few of the film adaptations of some books though.

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books, literature, novels

The Emperor of Gladness, a new novel by Ocean Vuong

30 April 2025

The Vietnamese American writer’s second novel will be published next month:

One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to alter Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community at the brink.

Vuong’s debut novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, was published in 2019. Six years seems like a bit of time between drinks, but Vuong also published a book of poetry, Time Is a Mother, in 2022.

We Are the Stars, Gina Chick, tops 2025 Dymocks Top 101 Book poll

7 April 2025

We Are the Stars, by Australian author Gina Chick, has claimed the number one spot in the 2025 Dymocks Top 101 Books poll. We Are the Stars also enjoys the distinction of being the first work of non-fiction to top the the list in almost twenty years.

Notable fiction inclusions (being titles I’ve also read) in this year’s Top 101 include Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams, and Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi.

Every year, customers of the Australian bookseller vote to determine their favourite titles of the previous twelve months.

Does the world no longer need white male authors?

28 March 2025

Jacob Savage, writing for Compact:

Over the course of the 2010s, the literary pipeline for white men was effectively shut down. Between 2001 and 2011, six white men won the New York Public Library’s Young Lions prize for debut fiction. Since 2020, not a single white man has even been nominated (of 25 total nominations). The past decade has seen 70 finalists for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize — with again, not a single straight white American millennial man.

Have white male authors been over presented for too long? Most likely. Other voices, especially from groups that have been pushed aside for too long, should be heard. But I’m not sure if it can be said that white male writers are intentionally being sidelined. We’re seeing more of the work of people we didn’t previously, and it turns out to be excellent.

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authors, books, literature, writing

Three Dresses by Wanda Gibson, wins 2025 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award

20 March 2025

Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, based Nukgal Wurra woman Wanda Gibson, has won the 2025 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, with her book, Three Dresses. Gibson’s win is the first time a children’s title has won the award. In addition, Three Dresses won the Children’s Literature category.

Winners in other categories included Highway 13 by Fiona McFarlane, in Fiction, and Black Witness by Amy McQuire, in Indigenous Writing, which is also on the longlist of this year’s Stella Prize.

Gawimarra: Gathering by Jeanine Leane, won the Poetry award, anything can happen by Susan Hampton, collected the Non-Fiction prize, while I Made This Just for You by Chris Ames, won the Unpublished Manuscript award.

Moonboy, a time traveller fears she has changed history, and other books

19 March 2025

In Moonboy by Anna Ciddor, Letty can travel back in time from the room in her present day house, to the same room in 1969, when it is occupied by a boy her age. Letty is able to relive the excitement of the Apollo 11 launch, but fears her jaunts through time might be changing history. Don’t mess with the space-time continuum now. Moonboy might be a kids’ book, but the plot is just my thing.

First Name, Second Name, by Steve MinOn, isn’t a time travel story, nor horror, as a dead man walks back through his family’s turbulent history to claim his identity. Just in time for the imminent Federal election: How Australian Democracy Works, edited by Australian journalist Amanda Dunn. Yes, we need our democracy more than ever, as the byline reminds us.

A troubled young woman takes her mother and grandmother to Peru on a trek to Machu Picchu, thinking the walk will do them all good. But is it a good idea? Or will the amalgam of family secrets that come to light scuttle her plan? That’s Best, First and Last, by Amy Matthews.

Gusty Girls explores the life of late Australian poet Dorothy Porter, written by her younger sister, Josie McSkimming. Careless People, by former Facebook director of global public policy, Sarah Wynn-Williams, is the book Meta doesn’t want you to read. If that doesn’t scream buy me, what does?

Farewell to the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

12 March 2025

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (BLFC), a humorous literary award honouring terrible made up opening sentences to what will, presumably, be terrible novels, is no more. BLFC founder, Dr Scott Rice, who established the award in 1982, and had been running it with his daughter EJ Rice in recent years, has decided to retire:

Being a year and a half older than Joseph Biden, I find the BLFC becoming increasingly burdensome and would like to put myself out to pasture while I still have some vim and vigor!

The BLFC was a light-hearted addition to the literary award circuit, and I hazard to guess a few of the winning entries might well have inspired some not so terrible novel openers. A list of past winners has been archived here.

The Shortlist for the Australian 2025 Indie Book Awards

20 January 2025

The Australian Indie Book Awards span six categories: fiction, non-fiction, debut fiction, illustrated non-fiction, children’s, and young adult, and last week the shortlist for the 2025 awards was published. My main interest is fiction, where Dusk by Robbie Arnott, and The Ledge by Christian White, are among contenders in that category.

I’m yet to read Dusk, but finished The Ledge in four days flat. Record time, for me, in recent years. White’s thriller/crime stories, with twists that leave you breathless, are verifiable page turners. That is was holidays contributed to the fast read. On that basis, The Ledge is my favourite in fiction. The winners will be announced on Monday 24 March 2025.

That might give me time to read Dusk, plus Cherrywood by Jock Serong, and Juice by Tim Winton, the other titles shortlisted in the fiction category, beforehand.

The ten best novels of the twenty-first century to date

31 December 2024

Literary writers at The Sydney Morning Herald canvassed critics, editors, and writers, including Jane Sullivan, David Free, Gyan Yankovich, and Beejay Silcox, to determine the best ten books of this century, or the last twenty-five years.

Producing such a small list from a relatively long time frame, will doubtless generate discussion.

Anyway, Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright (winner of both the Stellar, and Miles Franklin, literary awards in 2024), along with Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney, My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, and Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, are among notable — to me, that is — inclusions.

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books, literary awards, literature

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