2023 Longlist for Miles Franklin Literary Award announced

The 11 authors longlisted for the 2023 Miles Franklin Literary Award are:

Kgshak Akec, Hopeless Kingdom (UWA Publishing)
Robbie Arnott, Limberlost (Text Publishing)
Jessica Au, Cold Enough for Snow (Giramondo Publishing) Review
Shankari Chandran, Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens (Ultimo Press) Review
Claire G Coleman, Enclave (Hachette Australia) Review
George Haddad, Losing Face (University of Queensland Press)
Pirooz Jafari, Forty Nights (Ultimo Press) Review
Julie Janson, Madukka The River Serpent (UWA Publishing)
Yumna Kassab, The Lovers (Ultimo Press) Review
Fiona Kelly McGregor, Iris (Pan Macmillan Australia) Review
Adam Ouston, Waypoints (Puncher & Wattmann) Review

‘The 2023 longlist is a reflection of the breadth and depth of contemporary Australian storytelling,’ the judging panel said in a statement.

‘The 11 longlisted novels define Australian literature as a transformative space where writers are singing the songs of the nation today. They reverberate with the cadences of this land where Indigenous sovereignty was never ceded, but also bring to us mellifluous sounds from faraway lands, weaving together literary traditions from around the world. The words of our novelists, grounded in personal experience, poetry and philosophy, are heralds of the new dawn of Australian fiction: they hum and hiss with language that is newly potent and styles that are imaginative and fresh,’ the statement read.

The 2023 judges are Richard Neville, Mitchell Librarian of the State Library of NSW and Chair; author and literary critic, Dr Bernadette Brennan; literary scholar and translator, Dr Mridula Nath Chakraborty; book critic, Dr James Ley; and author and editor, Dr Elfie Shiosaki.

Last year, the Miles Franklin Literary Award was awarded to Jennifer Down for her epic second novel about trauma, vulnerability and regeneration, Bodies of Light (2022).

The shortlisted finalists will be revealed on 20 June 2023 and the winner announced on 25 July 2023.

If you liked this then you may like one of these equally haunting and magical Australian novels available at the Blue Mountains Library…

If you are a fan of Holly Ringland’s award-winning debut, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart – now a tv series adaption, then the following novels are for you…

Seven skins of Esther Wilding by Holly Ringland

Mr Carver’s Whale by Lyn Hughes

A Constant Hum by Alice Bishop (ebook Borrowbox )

The Butterfly Collector by Tea Cooper (ebook Borrowbox) (eaudio Borrowbox)

All that’s left unsaid by Tracey Lien (ebook Borrowbox)

Click the links above to reserve any of these titles with your library card or borrow books by visiting any of our branches

You can browse other titles in our elibrary right here, right now, with your library card

Stella Prize Shortlist 2023

Stella Prize Shortlist 2021

In alphabetical order by author’s surname, the 2023 Stella Prize shortlist is:

• We Come With This Place by Debra Dank (Echo Publishing)
• big beautiful female theory by Eloise Grills (Affirm Press)
• The Jaguar by Sarah Holland-Batt (University of Queensland Press)
• Hydra by Adriane Howell (Transit Lounge)
• Indelible City by Louisa Lim (Text Publishing)
• Bad Art Mother by Edwina Preston (Wakefield Press)

This year’s shortlist features two works of nonfiction, a graphic memoir, one book of poetry, and two novels, and celebrates established and debut Australian women writers.

WINNER ANNOUNCED 27 APRIL 2023

Good Reading Magazine – April

The April issue of Good Reading magazine is ready for you to enjoy through Blue Mountains Library!

• Meet Pip Williams, the best-selling author of The Bookbinder of Jericho.
• With 50 independent reviews, interviews with exciting authors
• explore the archive on the Good Reading website.

New Fiction

Naked Ambition by Robert Gott

Gregory Buchanan is a state politician. He’s stereotypically vain and considers himself infallible. His wife, Phoebe, is in PR. When Gregory decides to have a larger-than-life nude portrait of himself painted by an ambitious artist who wants the painting submitted for the Archibald Prize, Phoebe is aghast. The painting’s centrepiece is the local member’s ‘member’ … and the state election is only weeks away.

As the reader might already suspect, this is a farce, with the characters written in an exaggerated manner. None more so than Phoebe’s mother, Joyce, an evangelical Christian who can’t see past a literal interpretation of the Bible. Gregory’s mother, Margaret, appoints herself as Joyce’s nemesis, possessing the rapid sharpness of wit.

Graft: Motherhood, family and a year on the land by Maggie Mackellar

If a book about life on a sheep farm sounds prosaic, Maggie Mackellar’s new memoir is anything but.A lyrical exploration of nature, motherhood, family and the rhythms of agricultural life,

In my mind I walk over the land. I run my hands through the grass as if it were the hair on my head. I dig my fingers into the dirt as if the soil were the crust of my skin.

In Graft, Maggie MacKellar describes a year on a Merino wool farm on the east coast of Tasmania, and all of life – and death – that surrounds her through the cycle of lambing seasons. She gives us the land she knows and loves, the lambs she cares for, the ewes she tries to save, the birds around her, and the dogs and horses she adores reminds us of the deeper meanings to be discovered when we slow down, breathe in and listen.

Desert Jungle by Jeannie Baker

This is classic Jeannie Baker. Every page is made up of her incredible collages creating real-life scenes of the tropical desert. You can’t help but be mesmerised by the depth of her pictures and wonder at the length of time it must take to make the collages.

Her story takes place in the valley of the Cirios in the Sonoran Desert, which covers a third of Baja California. It is a protected area of land in Mexico and under consideration to be named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Although remote, this is a land still threatened by mining and tourism.

Baker’s environmental message is beautifully told in both words and pictures blending to perfection. To stop, look around you, and appreciate the true wonder of our world. It is life changing. A wonderful gem of a book.

Prettier If She Smiled More by Toni Jordan

Toni Jordan is in fine form with this follow-up to her heart-warming Dinner with the Schnabels.

Taking the spotlight in this outing is eldest daughter, Kylie Schnabel, whose perfectly controlled life unravels spectacularly over the course of a day. Her carefully plotted-out career as a pharmacist is looking shaky as her plans to take over the community chemist where she has worked for 20 years are thwarted by the sale of the business to a discount pharmacy mega chain…

You can borrow Good Reading from the library or access the digital subscription right here, right now, with your library card.

Haynes Manuals AllAccess – a library of online repair manuals at your fingertips in an instant

Use this online resource anytime via Blue Mountains eLibrary for Manuals and video tutorials for many of the most popular car and motorcycles.

Go to Haynes Car and Motorcycle Manuals or click on the Haynes icon on our eLibrary page. Then click on log in and go to find your institution, enter Blue Mountains Library and enter your library card number.

Carolyn’s Books of the Summer

Best Reads eBooks eAudio Books

Best Reads

Exiles by Jane Harper

The Gosling Girl by Jacqueline Roy

We Were Never Here by Andrea Bartz

Trapped by Lackberg and Fexeus

Keep Her Sweet by Helen Fitzgerald

Someone Else’s Child by Kylie Orr

The Natural History of Love by Caroline Petit

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eBooks

White Noise by Mercedes Mercier( BorrowBox)

The Stolen Sisters by Louise Jensen (Indy Reads)

The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding by Holly Ringland (BorrowBox)

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eAudio Books

The Woman in my Home by Kerry Fisher (BorrowBox)

The Brothers by S.D.Hinton(BorrowBox)

Lessons by Ian McEwan (BorrowBox)

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