Favourite Australian Book Award 2019: A year in fiction!

To celebrate our Favourite Australian Book Award (have you voted yet?), we’re getting each of our talented book buyers on the blog to talk about their area of expertise – what their favourite books were, what the big trends were, who were the breakout authors and which books became surprise bestsellers.

Today’s post is from Ben Hunter, our fiction category manager. Read on!

I read a lot of good Australian books in 2019 and raved about them on this humble book blog. Looking back, my favourite ones all asked questions of identity. Who are we? Who are the people we love? What’s the identity of our country? Does this reflect some weird personal crisis of me as a reader or is this where culture’s at right now? All I know is that these novels are brilliant.

Read on for a selection of my most loved. I loosely group them together as crowd favourites, literary bestsellers and books you probably haven’t read but I sincerely wish you would.

Crowd Favourites

These are the big names that met our expectations and went even further, selling squillions of copies to adoring fans. These are my favourites among the blockbusters.

The Rosie Result

by Graeme Simsion

Don Tillman returned for another joyous and funny Rosie novel from the now legendary Graeme Simsion. This challenges readers to think hard on how we parent, how we treat autism in society and how we go about opening the world’s best cocktail bar.

Buy it here

The Wife and the Widow

by Christian White

Christian White became an instant bestseller with The Nowhere Child and his second book is even better, in my opinion. A claustrophobic and speedy, yet cerebral kind of thriller split between the perspectives of the widow of a murdered man and the wife of the man accused of killing him. The ending exploded many a brain here at Booktopia HQ.

Buy it here

Cilka’s Journey

by Heather Morris

The Tattooist of Auschwitz is nothing short of a phenomenon, and anything that would dare to follow it up has serious shoes to fill. Cilka’s Journey is stupendous. As fascinating as it is moving, it takes the themes of Tattooist to a new level. Unforgettable.

Buy it here

The Scholar

by Dervla McTiernan

I struggle to enjoy any police procedural/hard-boiled crime fiction unless it’s written at the supreme master level of Michael Connelly and Val McDermid. Not only is Dervla McTiernan writing at that level two books into her career, she’s getting better with each one.

Buy it here

Literary Bestsellers

2019 was a busy, busy year for Australian literary talent, with Charlotte Wood, Christos Tsiolkas, Elliot Perlman and Tara June Winch among the critically acclaimed authors publishing fantastic new novels. Here’s why I loved them!

Maybe the Horse Will Talk

by Elliot Perlman

You might not have guessed this from reading his previous books, but Elliot Perlman is delightfully funny! This book is challenging, ferocious in its wit and relevant to any reader who’s had to work in today’s bonkers corporate world.

Buy it here

There Was Still Love

by Favel Parrett

Written as a love letter to her grandparents and set in two cities a world apart, There Was Still Love is a small novel of tremendous humanity. You’ll read it in one sitting and you’ll cry your eyes out.

Buy it here

Bruny

by Heather Rose

Subversive, explosive and frighteningly close to real events from our contemporary geopolitical turmoil, Bruny is a family saga, a political thriller, a small town romance and an Australian literary marvel all at once. I couldn’t put it down.

Buy it here

The Yield

by Tara June Winch

We’ve waited a long time for a new novel from Tara June Winch and with The Yield she delivered a beautiful story of language, dispossession and the power of everything that endures. This is the book that Australia needs.

Buy it here

Damascus

by Christos Tsiolkas

In this masterpiece of imagination, Christos Tsiolkas immerses readers in the life of St. Paul and the origin of the Christian faith. While this is a radical departure from his contemporary fiction, the same themes still shine – class, masculinity, sexuality, family, shame and violence. A book to dive head first into!

Buy it here

The Weekend

by Charlotte Wood

The story of three remarkable women, their dead best friend’s beach house and one very old dog. Charlotte Wood’s brevity and precision are showcased like never before in this evolution of her hilarious and caustic style. I think this is her best book yet.

Buy it here

Books You Might Have Missed

These are some amazing books I’ve encountered in 2019 that didn’t attain blockbuster status but are oh so good. You might have missed them entirely. I think they’re worth checking out.

Paris Savages

by Katherine Johnson

Six years and a PhD in the making, Paris Savages shines a light on the practice of ethnographic exhibitions or “human zoos”, where Aboriginal Australians and First Nations people from across the newly colonised world were toured through Europe as part of a horrific blend of science and spectacle. Historical fiction at its most urgent and necessary.

Buy it here

Islands

by Peggy Frew

Told in sparse, meditative prose, Islands draws a tragic portrait of a family falling apart in the aftermath of a marriage. Its dark and understated beauty totally consumed me.

Buy it here

The Sea and Us

by Catherine de Saint Phalle

This, like Catherine de Saint Phalle’s Poum and Alexandre, left me in tears. A strange little story of disparate people and our common, desperate need for connection.

Buy it here

Bodies of Men

by Nigel Featherstone

I was unexpectedly blown away by this book and its evocative, unpretentious good writing. I think it’s just the thing for readers of Sebastian Faulks. There are even some ethereal notes of Michael Ondaatje in this, it’s that good.

Buy it here

Vote for your Favourite Australian Book of 2019 – voting MUST close midnight tomorrow, 31st January!

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About the Contributor

Ben Hunter

Ben is Booktopia's dedicated fiction and children's book specialist. He spends his days painstakingly piecing together beautiful catalogue pages and gift guides for the website. At any opportunity, he loves to write warmly of the books that inspire him. If you want to talk books, find him tweeting at @itsbenhunter