Book industry names best authors, covering life from The Lodge to a treehouse
A rock star, a political pundit and a long-time tree-house builder are among this year’s book industry award winners.
A veteran rock star, a seasoned political pundit, a long-time tree-house builder, a fighting feminist and a philosopher who writes children’s books were among the winners at the Australian Book Industry Awards in Sydney last night.
Tony Abbott may no longer be prime minister but his short term in office is the basis for Niki Savva’s The Road To Ruin: How Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin Destroyed Their Own Government, which was named the nonfiction book of the year.
Savva, who writes for The Australian, is an experienced political journalist who also spent time in government, working as an adviser to then treasurer Peter Costello.
The writers she prevailed over in the general nonfiction section included sometimes controversial Melbourne broadcaster Clementine Ford, although her debut book, Fight Like a Girl, was recognised with the Matt Richell Award for a new writer.
The biography of the year went to Cold Chisel frontman Jimmy Barnes for Working Class Boy, a memoir that starts with his childhood in Scotland and ends before he becomes a musician. His readers, and no doubt his publisher, are hoping for a second instalment.
Barnes said the memories explored in the book had been “killing me for 50 years”. He dedicated the award to his brothers and sisters, “who lived the life with me, hiding in the cupboard, hoping it would change”.
Barnes said he was working on a second book to be called Working Class Man about the personal pain that came with rock-star success.
The fiction prizes were awarded to US-based Australian novelist Dominic Smith for The Last Painting of Sara de Vos (literary fiction), English-born, Melbourne-based debut author Jane Harper for the crime novel The Dry (general fiction) and American writer Ann Patchett for her novel Commonwealth (international book of the year).
The awards for children’s books were shared by Melbourne-based Andy Griffiths, a previous winner, for The 78-Storey Treehouse, and Melbourne philosopher and author Damon Young for My Sister is a Superhero.
The award for books for older children went to Victorian writer Zana Fraillon for her novel The Bone Sparrow, which explores issues such as asylum-seekers and immigration policy.
The ABIAs, presented at the Art Gallery of NSW, do not carry prize money but do often lead to extra cash flowing from the tills of bookstores. Last year’s main winner, for example, Magda Szubanski’s memoir The Reckoning, has doubled in sales since.
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