Vote for Queensland’s book of the year

Vote for your favourite book: The Courier-Mail People’s Choice Queensland Book of the Year Award poll opens

Memoir: Journalist and author Phil Brown. Picture: AAP/ Ric Frearson

In a year of COVID-enforced introspection it seems fitting that a memoir of his Hong Kong childhood by Brisbane journalist Phil Brown is among the nominees for The Courier-Mail People’s Choice Queensland Book of the Year Award for 2020.

Nominee: Phil Brown for The Kowloon Kid. Picture: AAP/ Ric Frearson

But the rest of the books nominated for this category by the judges of the fiction and non-fiction categories in this year’s Queensland Literary Awards span a wide range of topics from the history of the Brisbane River floods, to feeding native birds, to a retelling of Australia’s gold rushes from the perspective of Chinese immigrants.

Qweekend Mirandi Riwoe, Stone Sky Gold Mountain

The other nominees are Stone Sky, Gold Mountain by Mirandi Riwoe; The Breeding Season by Amanda Niehaus; Meet me at Lennons by Melanie Myers; Lifetime of Impossible Days by Tabitha Bird; Feeding the Birds at Your Table by Darryl Jones; Hearing Maud by Jessica White and A River with a City Problem by Margaret Cook.

Nominee: Amanda Niehaus, Author of the Breeding Season

Brown, The Courier-Mail’s Arts editor, says his book is about his family history but also about how childhood shapes us and sometimes fill us with yearning and regret. The publication comes at a time when Hong Kong is at a pivotal moment in its history and Brown’s often amusing reflections (among them his neighbourhood japes with Michael Hutchence who lived across the road) are a portal to a bygone era.

Nominee: From The Kowloon Kid, by Phil Brown — Phil's brother Stephen, Michael Hutchence and Phil on a sampaan in Hong Kong.

“I wrote the book after many years of procrastination. I have written many articles about Hong Kong over the years but was never quite sure about how to write my memoir,” he says. “Then I recalled an experience I’d had when I was in Hong Kong, had a fever and wandered down to the foyer of The Peninsula Hong Kong hotel from my room and I imagined all the ghosts of the past haunting the foyer and that became my way into the story.”

“I also wanted to honour my grandfather who went to Shanghai in the 1930s from London and ended up in Hong Kong. He was a POW there during World War Two.

“My father also grew up in Hong Kong and I lived there for from the age of six to 13 and it was such a formative experience but it took decades of distillation in my memory before it was ready to come out.”

Author of Meet Me at Lennons, Melanie Myers

The Courier-Mail editor Chris Jones said the People’s Choice award was an important way to showcase the state’s literary talent and to shine the spotlight on topics important to Queenslanders.

Nominee: A River with a City Problem author Margaret Cook.

The winner of the $10,000 award is determined by public voting through the State Library website from 9am today (July 20) until August 17

Nominee: Tabitha Bird for Lifetime of Impossible Days

VOTE HERE: https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/form/the-courier-mail-peoples-choice

The winner will be announced on Friday September 4

Nominee: Darryl Jones for Feeding The Birds At Your Table.