Check it out! Primary speakers Anna Walker and Belinda Murrell have both been shortlisted for the 2018 Environment Award for Children’s Literature.

Anna’s award-winning and stunning Florette has been shortlisted for Picture Fiction, accompanying Belinda’s fantastic Pippa’s Island 1: The Beach Shack Cafe under the Fiction category.

Winners will be announced in October 2018 – keep an eye on the EACL website here for updates, and to download a poster with all the titles for a colourful addition to your classroom.

Anna is available to be booked in Melbourne for Book Week 2019, and Belinda can visit schools all year round in Sydney.

How excited are we to get our paws on Rosalie Ham’s new release, The Year of the Farmer! Timely and magnificent, Rosalie’s new title is set in a quiet farming town in regional New South Wales where a war is brewing…

“The last few years have been punishingly dry, especially for the farmers, but otherwise, it’s all Neralie Mackintosh’s fault. If she’d never left town then her ex, the hapless but extremely eligible Mitchell Bishop, would never have fallen into the clutches of the truly awful Mandy, who now lords it over everyone as if she owns the place.

So, now that Neralie has returned to run the local pub, the whole town is determined to reinstate her to her rightful position in the social order. But Mandy Bishop has other ideas. Meanwhile the head of the local water board – Glenys ‘Gravedigger’ Dingle – is looking for a way to line her pockets at the expense of hardworking farmers already up to their eyes in debt. And Mandy and Neralie’s war may be just the chance she was looking for…”

Fans of The Dressmaker are set to devour The Year of the Farmer, where drought is the last of the community’s problems, and small town country life is revealed in all it’s dark glory. Rosalie’s trademark satirical tone permeates The Year of the Farmer, and her black comedy is both pleasing and fantastically spot on.

We can’t wait to attend the book launch on this Thursday evening and our office copy is already being passed around like a hotcake! Make sure to keep an eye out for Rosalie in the upcoming months as she commences her promotional events around Victoria.

Booked Out is pleased to announce our newest speaker addition – Chris Hammer, author of Scrublands.

Chris has worked as journalist for more than thirty years, alternating between covering federal politics and international affairs. As a political correspondent, he reported from more than thirty countries across six continents.

Chris is the author of two successful and well-received non-fiction books, The River: A Journey through the Murray-Darling Basin and The Coast: A Journey along Australia’s Eastern Shores. The River recounts Chris’ travels through the Australian bush during 2008 and 2009, from Queensland to South Australia, at the height of the worst drought in Australian history. It’s those travels and the people he met that provided the inspiration, and inform the setting, for Chris’s first work of fiction, Scrublands.

Already a no 1. bestseller, Scrublands has taken Australia by storm and is expected to make similar waves internationally.

As a former television and print journalist as well as a crime writer, Chris brings a wealth of experience to his talks. Perfect for library audiences and book clubs, Chris is available in Canberra and surrounding areas.

Whoo! We adore getting packages in the post, but nothing is more loved than when one of those packages is a new book from one of our lovely authors.

Michael Gerard Bauer‘s new YA novel The Things That Will Not Stand has finally been released and looks set to be a hit – with an interesting premise of Sebastian meeting the ‘wrong girl’.

Frida is an edgy and caustic storyteller whose stories begin to not quite add up the more that she speaks. The Things That Will Not Stand takes place in one unexpected and eventful day at a university open day.

Topped off with a beautiful cover, we are excited to add this to the Booked Out Book Club!

We loved seeing Booked Out Speakers Sofie Laguna and John Marsden on the ‘Stranger than Fiction’ Q&A special last night. They were joined by Maxine Beneba Clarke, Michael Mohammed Ahmad, and Trent Dalton. If you missed it, catch up on the episode using the livestream here!

Some of those names look veeerrry familiar…

Booked Out are extremely proud to say that some of our favourite speakers have won or received honours in the 2018 CBCA Book of the Year Awards.

For the Older Readers Category, Cath Crowley, Simmone Howell and Fiona Wood take out first place for the very popular Take Three Girls.

Michael Gerard Bauer has also been awarded winner of the Early Childhood category, with the fantastic story Rodney Loses It!

Martine Murray has been recognised with Honours twice (!) in the Younger Readers category, with Booked Out favourites, Marsh and Me and Henrietta and The Perfect Night.

We give a HUGE congratulations to all of the winners and honoured authors!

Beloved teachers and librarians – it’s crunch time. Book Week is only a few days away… but don’t fear. If you’re after a super last minute visit, please give us a call on 03 9824 0177 and we can work our magic.

And it’s only thirteen more sleeps away! While it’s not Christmas, it’s really starting to feel like it.

Teachers, it’s time to get your reading voices ready: Book Week is now on the horizon.

While the Booked Out elves are busily finalising some last-minute visits, we welcome you to get in touch with any questions you might have about your upcoming bookings.

Though we are lucky to say that many of our fabulous speakers are all booked up for Book Week, there are still some spots remaining. So, don’t hesitate to give us a call if you are still after a special someone to speak at your school (Santa hat sadly not included)!

Love theatre and love Gabrielle Wang? You’re in luck, friend – Gabrielle’s award-winning book A Ghost in My Suitcase has taken a leap to the stage – and it already looks fantastic.

Everyone is welcome to come to the Arts Centre Melbourne, who are bringing Gabrielle’s immensely popular journey to life from the 18 – 21 of October.

Performances are being shown each evening, with additional matinees on the Saturday and Sunday.

Supernatural family secrets and mysterious plot-lines can only make your evening better – while also teaching some home truths about the importance of reconnecting with your ancestry.

Tickets can be booked here.

To say there’s buzz around James Moloney’s newest release, The Love that I Have, would be an understatement: it’s already been hailed as a rival to Markus Zuzak’s beloved novel The Book Thief and The Boy in Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne.

The Love That I Have tells the story of Margot Baumann, a naive German girl who leaves school to take up her sister’s job in the mail room of a prison. But this is Germany in 1944, and the prison is Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin.

Margot is at first shielded from the camp’s brutality, but she comes to know the lives of the prisoners through their letters – letters of love, hope and despair.

The Love that I Have is currently sitting at no. 3 on the national bestseller list – so it’s clearly the book to pick up this winter.

Congratulations, James, on the exciting new release!

Perfect for book groups, libraries and senior secondary, James is available to speak on his new book in Brisbane now. James is also touring Melbourne from 20-24th August 2018.