Pups, vampires and a president: The bestselling books of 2020
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Local authors accounted for eight of the 10 bestselling books in Australia last year, with the irrepressible blue heeler, Bluey, the subject of three of them. The canine hero of the ABC TV series, created by Ludo Studios in Brisbane, had seven books in the overall top 20, with combined sales exceeding 910,000 copies.
Despite the emergence of coronavirus and the consequent lockdowns that forced many bricks and mortar bookshops to shift to online sales and offer click-and-collect or home delivery, total book sales jumped by 9 per cent to 66 million in 2020, according to Nielsen BookScan, which surveys more than 1500 booksellers in Australia. Total value increased by 8 per cent to $1.2 billion.
Hari Kunzru s timely novel for our insecure world
By Vanessa Francesca
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Scribner, $32.99
Before New York, Seattle and Portland had been designated anarchist zones where the military could be sent in to disperse peaceful protest, before the outgoing President used the debate to dog whistle to hate groups, and before Trumpian racism becomes a thing of the past, Hari Kunzru sought to highlight the danger with his novel
Red Pill.
Hari Kunzru s novel is a timely look at the world and the importance of human rights.
Credit:David Levenson
It is about a writer who gets a grant to study in Germany and comes to suspect that fascism might be on the rise again. It’s the story of how he hunts down information about this intuition and it’s also a kind of meditation on the extremity of our own times with the insoluble moral dilemmas caused by the quandaries that come with immigration, the horrors of resurgent racism, and the terrible question mark of Trump.
Are you high? This is what a student asked me recently during a Zoom tutorial. Whatâs that youâre drinking? he demanded to know, gesturing to the glass on my desk. Elderflower cordial, I answered defensively. (I confess that 26 years in the creative writing gulag has occasionally driven me to drink but not while teaching.)
A few days later I met a friend for our regular walk along the local river. She asked exactly the same question: Are you high? No, I said. Iâm happy.
Author Gabrielle Carey has long had few boundaries between home and work. In 2020, it became commonplace.
Beethoven: Finding joy in times of crisis
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No matter how many times one listens to his music, Beethovenâs command of contrasting worlds and conflict is breathtaking, says Richard Tognetti, artistic director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra.
The German master created some of the most sublime, sensitive, electrifying and fiery works, sometimes composed at the same time and premiered in the very same concert.
Still heard: Beethoven turns 250 this year.
âBeethoven is minimalist and maximalist, a composer of immensely conflicted personae,â Tognetti says. âBeethoven the moralist, environmentalist, philosopher; Beethoven the enraged, fulminating against the establishment and elites, hubristic, histrionic and yet tragic. Beethoven the disrupter and Beethoven the clarifier of musical intention.â�