Staff Top 10’s

See a selection of staff top reads. Think of it as our personal recommendations!

2020

Adult

  • Where the crawdads sing  Delia Owens
  • Nothing to see here  Kevin Wilson
  • The clergyman's wife  Molly Greeley
  • Caging skies  Christine Leunens
  • In the dream house  Carmen Maria Machado
  • The memory police  Yoko Ogawa
  • In the clearing  JP Pomare
  • Such a fun age  Kiley Reid
  • Wild fearless chests  Mandy Beaumont
  • The wives  Tarryn Fisher
  • Olive, again  Elizabeth Strout
  • Riding with giants  Peter Holmes à Court
  • The last wish  Andrezj Sapkowski
  • The red address book  Sofia Lundberg
  • Grandmothers  Sally Vickers
  • The factory  Hiroko Oyomada
  • The good turn  Dervla McTiernan
  • Darkness for light  Emma Viskic 
  • There was still love  Favel Parrett
  • The witches are coming  Lindy West

YA

  • Little women  Louisa May Alcott
  • The surprising power of a good dumpling  Wai Chim
  • Conference of the birds  Ransom Riggs
  • One of us is lying  Karen M McManus
  • I wish you all the best  Mason Deaver

Junior

  • Max Kowalski didn't mean it  Susi Day
  • Hotdog: Show time  Anh Do
  • Diary of a wimpy kid: Wrecking ball  Jeff Kinney
  • The illustrated encyclopædia of ugly animals  Sami Bayly
  • The beast of Buckingham Palace  David Walliams

2019

  • City of trees – Sophie Cunningham
  • The place on Dalhousie – Melina Marchetta
  • Dark emu – Bruce Pascoe
  • Little gods – Jenny Acland
  • The bridge – Enza Gandolfo
  • Growing up African in Australia – Maxine Beneba Clarke
  • Troll hunting – Ginger Gorman
  • The erratics – Vicki Laveau-Harvie
  • Invented lives – Andrea Goldsmith
  • Australia Day – Stan Grant
  • Accidental feminists – Jane Caro
  • No friend but the mountains – Behrouz Boochani
  • The friend – Sigrid Nunez
  • My year of rest and relaxation – Ottessa Moshfegh
  • Convenience store woman – Sayaka Murata
  • Louis & Louise – Julie Cohen
  • The land before avocado – Richard Glover
  • Small blessings – Emily Brewin
  • The Rosie result – Graeme Simsion
  • The rip – Mark Brandi
  • Growing up queer in Australia – Benjamin Law
  • Born-again blakfella – Jack Charles & Namila Benson
  • The autumn murders – Robert Gott
  • Mouth full of blood – Toni Morrison
  • Three women – Lisa Taddeo
  • A universe of sufficient size – Miriam Sved
  • Mother of pearl – Angela Savage
  • The Nickel boys – Colson Whitehead
  • My sister, the serial killer – Oyinkan Braithwaite
  • 10 minutes, 38 seconds in this strange world – Elif Shafak
  • The weekend – Charlotte Wood
  • Peace  Garry Disher
  • She said  Jodi Kantor & Megan Twohey
  • Her kind of luck  Michelle Balogh
  • Girl, woman, other  Bernardine Evaristo
  • The wife and the widow  Christian White
  • Maybe the horse will talk  Elliot Perlman
  • Fleishman is in trouble  Taffy Brodesser-Akner
  • This taste for silence  Amanda O'Callaghan
  • Westwind  Ian Rankin
  • 488 rules for life  Kitty Flanagan
  • Before the coffee gets cold  Toshikazu Kawaguchi
  • Calypso  David Sedaris
  • The Dutch house  Ann Patchett
  • The testaments – Margaret Atwood

YA

  • The knife of never letting go  Patrick Ness
  • On the come up  Angie Thomas
  • We are displaced  Malala Yousafzai
  • Five feet apart  Rachael Lippincott
  • Famous in a small town  Emma Mills
  • The secret runners of New York  Matthew Reilly
  • The sun is also a star  Nicola Yoon
  • The ice wolves  Amie Kaufman
  • After the lights go out  Lili Wilkinson
  • The red scrolls of magic  Cassandra Clare
  • Aurora rising  Amie Kaufman
  • What I like about me  Jenna Guillaume
  • I am change  Suzy Zail
  • Looking for Alaska  John Green
  • The tattooist of Auschwitz (YA edition)  Heather Morris
  • The call of the wild  John London
  • Frankly in love  David Yoon
  • This is how we change the ending  Vickie Wakefield
  • Whisper  Lynette Noni
  • Young dark emu  Bruce Pascoe

Junior

  • Clementine Rose and the bake-off dilemma  Jacqueline Harvey
  • WeirDo: Hopping weird  Anh Do
  • The phantom bandit  Geronimo Stilton
  • Zac Power: Zac's biggest hits  H I Larry
  • Mr Popper's penguins  Richard & Florence Atwater
  • 47 degrees  Justin D'Ath
  • His name was Walter  Emily Rodda
  • The peacock detectives  Carly Nugent
  • Ninja kid: Ninja switch  Anh Do
  • Artemis Fowl  Eoin Colfer
  • Wolf girl: Into the wild  Anh Do
  • The world's worst teachers  David Walliams
  • The 117-storey treehouse  Andy Griffiths & Terry Denton
  • Final storm  Deborah Abela
  • The treehouse joke book  Andy Griffiths
  • Rise of the Mythix: Golden unicorn  Anh Do
  • The glimme  Emily Rodda
  • Guts  Raina Telgemeier
  • The Australia survival guide  George Ivanoff

2018

  • Transcription – Kate Atkinson
  • Best summer stories – Aviva Tuffield
  • Hell ship – Michael Veitch
  • The fragments – Toni Jordan
  • The arsonist – Chloe Hooper
  • The lost man – Jane Harper
  • Sisters of no mercy – Vincent Silk
  • The year of the farmer – Rosalie Ham
  • Any ordinary day – Leigh Sales
  • Apple and knife – Intan Paramaditha
  • The eastern curlew – Harry Saddler
  • Too much lip – Melissa Lucashenko
  • Clock dance – Anne Tyler
  • Orchid & the wasp – Caoilinn Hughes
  • The biographer’s lover – Ruby J Murray
  • Sabrina – Nick Drnaso
  • Motherhood – Sheila Heti
  • Leila – Prayaag Akbar
  • The geography of friendship – Sally Piper
  • Growing up Aboriginal in Australia – Anita Heiss
  • The bookshop of the broken-hearted – Robert Hillman
  • Bohemia beach – Justine Ettler
  • The mercy seat – Elizabeth H Winthrop
  • From a low and quiet sea – Donal Ryan
  • The shepherd’s hut – Tim Winton
  • The yellow house – Emily O’Grady
  • Less – Andrew Sean Greer
  • Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine – Gail Honeyman
  • Dear Mrs Bird – AJ Pearce
  • Brave – Rose McGowan
  • Call me by your name – André Aciman
  • The tattooist of Auschwitz – Heather Morris
  • Conversations with friends – Sally Rooney
  • Terra Nullius – Claire G Coleman
  • The lonely city – Olivia Laing
  • The choke – Sofie Laguna
  • Her body and other parties – Carmen Maria Machado
  • Home fire – Kamila Shamsie
  • The left hand of darkness – Ursula K LeGuin
  • Milkman – Anna Burns

YA

  • Ida Alison Evans
  • Every day  David Levithan
  • Simon vs the Homo Sapiens agenda Becky Albertalli
  • Between us – Clare Atkins
  • I am thunder  Muhammad Khan
  • The journal of curious letters  James Dashner
  • The darkest minds  Alexandra Bracken
  • Changing gear  Scot Gardner
  • Release  Patrick Ness
  • Paper cranes don't fly  Peter Vu
  • The lady's guide to petticoats and piracy  Mackenzi Lee
  • Take three girls  Simmone Howell, Cath Crowley, Fiona Wood
  • A song only I can hear  Barry Jonsberg

Junior

  • The bad guys: Superbad  Aaron Blabey
  • Diary of a wimpy kid: the meltdown  Jeff Kinney
  • Storm boy  Colin Thiele
  • Nevermoor: Wundersmith  Jessica Townsend
  • The ice monster  David Walliams
  • Biscuits, bands and very big plans  Liz Pichon
  • The bad guys: Do-you-think-he-saur-us?!  Aaron Blabey
  • The 104-storey treehouse  Andy Griffiths & Terry Denton
  • Polly & Buster  Sally Rippin
  • Hot dog: game time!  Anh Do

2017

  • The first casualty – Peter Greste
  • Murder on the Orient Express – Agatha Christie
  • The trauma cleaner – Sarah Krasnostein
  • Can you hear the sea – Brenda Niall
  • The travelling cat chronicles – Hiro Arikawa
  • The woman who fooled the world – Beau Donnelly & Nick Toscano
  • Danger music – Eddie Ayres
  • The rules do not apply – Ariel Levy
  • First person – Richard Flanagan
  • Fighting hislam – Susan Carland
  • Hunger – Roxane Gay
  • Force of nature – Jane Harper
  • The handmaid’s tale – Margaret Atwood
  • The mouth that roared – Les Twentyman
  • Common people – Tony Birch
  • The power – Naomi Alderman
  • Taboo – Kim Scott
  • Back to Broady – Caroline van de Pol
  • Wimmera – Mark Brandi
  • No middle name – Lee Child
  • Into the water – Paula Hawkins
  • The red hunter – Lisa Unger
  • A writing life: Helen Garner and her work – Bernadette Brennan
  • The boy behind the curtain – Tim Winton
  • See what I have done – Sarah Schmidt
  • Men without women – Haruki Murakami
  • A murder without motive: the killing of Rebecca Ryle – Martin McKenzie-Murray
  • Anything is possible – Elizabeth Strout
  • Depends what you mean by extremist – John Safran
  • An isolated incident – Emily Maguire
  • Fight like a girl – Clementine Ford
  • The girl before – JP Delaney
  • Norse mythology – Neil Gaiman
  • Future sex: a new kind of free love – Emily Witt
  • Right behind you – Lisa Gardner
  • Lincoln in the bardo – George Saunders
  • Good me bad me – Ali Land
  • Jasper Jones – Craig Silvey
  • Working class boy – Jimmy Barnes

YA

  • La belle sauvage – Phillip Pullman
  • The hate u give  Angie Thomas
  • Turtles all the way down  John Green
  • Death cure  James Dashner
  • Words in deep blue  Cath Crowley

Junior

  • Diary of a wimpy kid: the getaway  Jeff Kinney
  • Goodnight stories for rebel girls  Elena Favili
  • You may already be a winner  Ann Dee Ellis
  • Wonder  R J Palacio
  • Nevermoor: the trials of Morrigan Crow  Jessica Townsend

2016

  • The story of a new name – Elena Ferrante
  • Those who leave & those who stay – Elena Ferrante
  • The story of the lost child – Elena Ferrante
  • Everywhere I look – Helen Garner
  • The sympathizer – Viet Thanh Nguyen
  • Talking to my country – Stan Grant
  • Me before you – Jojo Moyes
  • The natural way of things – Charlotte Wood
  • The big short – Michael Lewis
  • Our tiny useless hearts – Toni Jordan
  • Hope farm – Peggy Frew
  • Ruby – Cynthia Bond
  • Jonathan unleashed – Meg Rosoff
  • How I met my son – Yolanda Bogert
  • The memory artist – Katherine Brabon
  • The last painting of Sara de Vos – Dominic Smith
  • The course of love – Alain de Botton
  • Truly, madly, guilty – Liane Moriarty
  • The dry – Jane Harper
  • The girls – Emma Cline
  • Westography – Warren Kirk
  • Scattered pearls – Sohila Zanjani
  • Skylarking – Kate Mildenhall
  • The best of Adam Sharp – Graeme Simsion
  • I’m supposed to protect you from all this – Nadja Spiegelman
  • The hate race – Maxine Beneba Clarke
  • Fire boy – Sami Shah
  • The sellout – Paul Beatty
  • The good people – Hannah Kent
  • The woman on the stairs – Bernard Schlink
  • The life and death of Sophie Stark – Anna North
  • Tell the truth, shame the devil – Melina Marchetta
  • The wonder – Emma Donoghue
  • The Nakano thrift shop – Hiromi Kawakami
  • All we had – Annie Weatherwax
  • Lily and the octopus – Steven Rowley
  • Full bore – William McInnes