And Australia’s favourite book is…

Dymocks has released its annual list of Top 101 books voted for by the Australian public.

The Dymocks Top 101 survey is the largest of its kind in Australia and provides a unique snapshot of the nation’s reading habits. Now in its tenth year, a record number of 141,485 votes were cast by book lovers for their favourite book of all time, a 15 per cent increase on last year.

The Runners-up

After three years in the top position, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak slipped slightly into second place.

Australian readers are big fans of home-grown talent. Half the top ten and nearly two-thirds of the top 20 books are by Australian authors. It’s a real testament to the talent of our local writer that the highest ranking Aussie authors are:

• Markus Zusak (The Book Thief at no. 2),
• L. Stedman (The Light Between the Oceans at no.5),
• Hannah Kent (Burial Rites at no. 6),
• Graeme Simsion (The Rosie Project at no.8),
• Anh Do (The Happiest Refugee at no. 9).

A clear trend in the Top 101 is powerful Australian female fiction. Big Little Lies by NY Times best-seller Liane Moriarty comes in at no. 17. Released three years ago, Dymocks has sold over 25,000 copies and it’s recently been made into a successful TV mini-series starring Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon. With three books on the list this year Moriarty has tapped into a passionate readership that won’t die down any time soon.

Hannah Kent’s award-winning historical literature has also proved popular with Booklovers, Burial Rites is at no.6 and The Good People at no. 19.

Film tie-ins remain popular with six of the top 10 books made into successful films. Girl on the Train jumped 32 places to come in at no. 3. Sales of the book went through the roof last year with the much-hyped release of the movie. Paula Hawkins fans have a lot to look forward to this year with the release of her new novel Into the Water in May 2017.

Despite being released 5 years ago. Me Before You, by JoJo Moyes, makes its debut at no. 7 this year – the movie release last year gave it a huge boost.

The Top 101 is a mix of recent best-sellers and timeless classics with some books – Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, The Hobbit – remaining favourites each year. We’ve also recently seen a spike in sales of dystopian classic 1984, by George Orwell (no. 10) which has regained cultural currency since Trump’s inauguration”.

However, with a record 57 new books on the list, it seems that recent reads have a clear advantage when it comes time to vote.

Two books making recent waves are The Dry, by Jane Harper (no. 16) and Fight Like a Girl, Clementine Ford’s feminist rallying cry (no. 43). Aussie songwriter Holly Throsby’s compelling debut novel Goodwood is no. 90.

Seven authors have multiple entries on the list, mostly with two books, but blockbuster authors Liane Moriarty and JK Rowling (one under her pseudonym Robert Galbraith) both have 3.

The list is split fairly evenly between male (54 books) and female authors (47 books) with 11 of the top 20 books written by women.

Adult titles make up 88 per cent of the list and children’s/Young Adult the remaining 12 per cent. The Harry Potter series is the highest children’s listing at no. 4, up two places from last year. For the first time, poetry has made the list – Milk and Honey, by Instagram sensation Rupi Kaur, is no. 84.

And what is the number one book in Australia chosen by you?

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2015 and has gone on to sell over 200,000 copies in Australia.

Did you vote in the Top 101? Which of these titles is your favourite?