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