🏆 2018 Book of the year.

🏆 2019 Book of the year.

🏆 2020 Book of the year.

🏆 2021 Book of the year.

🏆 2022 Book of the year.

🏆 2023 Book of the year.

🏆 2024 Book of the year.

🏆 2025 Book of the year.

🏆 2026 Book of the year.

Jay's choice.

“Who has never killed an hour? Not casually or without thought, but carefully: a premeditated murder of minutes. The violence comes from a combination of giving up, not caring, and a resignation that getting past it is all you can hope to accomplish.”

Nath's choice.

“In a world of monotonous horror there could be no salvation in wild dreaming.”

Joel's choice.

“But books, like people, die. They die in fires or floods or in the mouths of worms or at the whims of tyrants. If they are not safeguarded, they go out of the world. And when a book goes out of the world, the memory dies a second death.”

Pat's choice.

“To know what a person has done, and to know who a person is, are very different things.”

Mark's choice.

Quote coming soon.

Everyone's 'Summer Project' choice.

“Only by living at the edge of death can you understand the indescribable joy of life.”

Mitch's choice.

“But here's some advice, boy. Don't put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That's why they're called revolutions.”

Luke's choice.

“What are the odds? One in a million? That's fine. One in a million happens to me ... all the time.”

Cliff's choice.

"Really I'm trying to write about footy and my grandson and me. About boys at dusk. A little life-hymn. A poem. A record of a season we are spending together before he turns into a man and I die,"

Dave's choice.

Quotation coming soon...

Rob's choice.

“But then again, the troubled are always young; the old are simply pathetic. Grow old and the edges come off: the mind rationalises, the heart concedes, the soul surrenders. We all grow old and frail, inside as well as out. The twists of reaction become entrenched, character traits become permanent: the resentments, the denials, the rationalisations. We learn to live with it. It’s so much more troubling when we are young and honest.”

Tim's choice.

“A hollowness echoed through him when he made these comparisons; he became aware of his lack of skill, his dearth of lessons, of old knowledge. He felt the looseness of his connection to the place. How tenuous his grip on the world was.”

Clinton's choice.

“How well do you know yourself?” He thought about the years, the goals he’d achieved, and the ultimate goal it was serving. “The Philosopher said that a man alone is either a god or a monster,” Gavin said. “I’m no god.” She stared at him for one moment more, those intense blue eyes unreadable. She smiled. “Well then. Maybe the times call for a monster.”

Jay's choice.

“Peculiar trait of the western people, thought Grant, that you could sleep with their wives, despoil their daughters, sponge on them, defraud them, do almost anything that would mean at least ostracism in normal society, and they would barely seem to notice it. But refuse to drink with them and you immediately became a mortal enemy."

Everyone's choice for the 2025 Newcastle Writers Festival edition of Bookclub.

"There's a madman dog beside me, and the hounds of memory ahead of us . . . It's love and beasts and wild mistakes, and regret, but never to change things."

Tom's choice.

“Dreams?’ ‘I never dream.’ And that’s true. I never dream except sometimes when I wake up in blank terror and have no idea what I am terrified of. Nights with gaping horror in the middle of them and no reason why. A skull grinning in the dark. Nights when I have all too little difficulty in identifying my emotions.”

Nath's choice.

“We did not ask for this room or this music. We were invited in. Therefore, because the dark surrounds us, let us turn our faces to the light. Let us endure hardship to be grateful for plenty. We have been given pain to be astounded by joy. We have been given life to deny death. We did not ask for this room or this music. But because we are here, let us dance.”

Pat's choice.

"It's a journalist's job to be a witness to history. We're not there to worry about ourselves. We're there to try and get as near as we can, in an imperfect world, to the truth and get the truth out."

Joel's choice and book #50 🏆

Quote coming soon...

Mark's choice.

"There is power in being nobody. When you're nobody, you are free to be anybody. Astronaut. Actress. Archaeoligist. Or even a lowdown, dirty, send-her-straight-to-hell, suburban drug slinger. Because if nobody can see you, then nobody can see your shame. Nobody can see your sorrow. And nobody can catch you crying your heart out."

Mitch's choice.

"A kid is a terrible thing to be, in charge of nothing. If you get past that and grown, it’s easiest to forget about the misery and pretend you knew all along what you were doing. Assuming you’ve ended up someplace you’re proud to be. And if not, easier to forget the whole thing, period. So this is going to be option three, not proud, not forgetting. Not easy."

Luke's choice.

“A dragon without its rider is a tragedy. A rider without their dragon is dead.”

Cliff's choice.

Quote coming soon...

Rob's choice.

"I don’t buy into the homogeneity of the human experience. I don’t think we’re all one. We can be one, but I don’t think we have to see things the same way for that to be so. An anarchic thought: We’re one but we’re not the same. We get to carry each other, not that we’ve got to, just that we get to.”

Tim's choice.

“And America, too, is a delusion, the grandest one of all. The white race believes--believes with all its heart--that it is their right to take the land. To kill Indians. Make war. Enslave their brothers. This nation shouldn't exist, if there is any justice in the world, for its foundations are murder, theft, and cruelty. Yet here we are.”

Clinton's choice.

"Welcome to adulthood." Cob said. "Every child finds a day when they realize that adults can be weak and wrong just like everyone else. After that day, you are an adult. Like it or not."

Jay's choice.

“If you know the country, he said, then you will be a wild colonial boy forever."

Everyone's 'Summer Project' choice.

"Be true, be brave, stand. Come on back and we'll see if you remember the simplest thing of all – how it is to be children, secure in belief and thus afraid of the dark. What can be done when you're eleven can often never be done again. No good friends, no bad friends; only people you want, need to be with."

Tom's choice.

"Let me tell you about your little Angel, Mr Moon. It's no secret that my previous Poly lost her way that fateful day. Out of nowhere I was confronted with a blaspheming parrot. One could scarcely believe the foul language that came out of that beak. I taught her to say, 'Who's a pretty girl?', 'Polly want a cracker', as well as select Christian blessings. It's only me here so it's nice to have someone to talk to."

Nath's choice.

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

Joel's choice.

“Call a jack a jack. Call a spade a spade. But always call a whore a lady. Their lives are hard enough, and it never hurts to be polite.”

Pat's choice.

"It never occurred to either of us that the earth itself might have been unyielding. We had dropped our seeds in our own little plot of black dirt just as Pecola’s father had dropped his seeds in his own plot of black dirt. Our innocence and faith were no more productive than his lust or despair."

Luke's choice.

"And this is why a cat, an overweight allergy sufferer, a bent person and a man called Ove made the inspection round this morning."

Mitch's choice.

“A battle, as relayed by a poet, is a glorious thing, full of heroic stands, daring charges, and valiant sacrifice. But a battlefield, as experienced by some poor bastard mired in the thick of it, is something different altogether. The word clusterfuck came to mind.”

Luke's choice.

“You do not write your life with words...You write it with actions. What you think is not important. It is only important what you do.”

Cliff's choice.

“Integrity is a bugger, it really is. Lying can get you into difficulties, but to really wind up in the crappers try telling nothing but the truth.”

Clinton's choice.

“I penetrated the outer cell membrane with a nanosyringe. "You poked it with a stick?"
No! I said. Well. Yes. But it was a scientific poke with a very scientific stick.”

Jay's choice.

“The Metropolitan Police Service is still, despite what people think, a working-class organisation and as such rejects totally the notion of an officer class. That is why every newly minted constable, regardless of their educational background, has to spend a two-year probationary period as an ordinary plod on the streets. This is because nothing builds character like being abused, spat at and vomited by members of the public.”

Tom's choice.

“Here is what I learned. Happiness does not fall from the sky; it is in your hands. Happiness comes from inside yourself and from the people you love. And if you are happy and healthy, you are a millionaire.”

Nath's choice.

"Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us."

Joel's choice.

"Bill was massive. He had power, intelligence and unmatched courage. In performance and character he stood above all the other 200,000 Australian horses sent to the Middle East in the Great War. But as war horses go he had one serious problem. No one could ride him but one man - Major Michael Shanahan. Some even thought Bill took a sneering pleasure in watching would-be riders hit the dust."

Pat's choice.

"The threats to human existence has always been imagined as coming from the outside: beings from outer space, asteroids, contagion loosed from the jungle. What if we did this to ourselves?"

Mark's choice.

“You have fallen badly, señor gringo. Bribery is a very serious crime in this country. You will have to pay.”

Mitch's choice.

“Your end is a dead blue wren.”

Luke's choice.

“Did you think you were going to drift through life on talent and hard work? Get up. You’re hardly a failure. You only get to think that of yourself when you stop trying to win.”

Craig's choice.

"Two years? I couldn’t be bothered waiting that long. I’d lose interest. But then I thought, They’re not really looking for talent, they’re looking for galahs who think they’ve got talent. You know, so they can tear them apart. I can do that."

Joel's choice.

“You are a sorry creature, Flashman. I have failed in you. But even to you I must say, this is not the end. You cannot continue here, but you are young, Flashman, and there is time yet. Though your sins be as red as crimson, yet shall they be as white as snow. You have fallen very low, but you can be raised up again …”

Tom's choice.

"Nooks littered the caves, providing respite from other miners and the magical creatures, the Abominations, as well as a place to sleep. Their frequency offered a dawn as false as the idea of time passing. Many a grey corner hid a dead fool who had slept too deeply."

Nath's choice.

“I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”

Pat's choice.

“That was the simple objective, being airborne, up longer, up higher, more casually & with more fuck off elegance than anyone else in the world. I never understood the rules or the science of it but I recognized the single-mindedness it took to match risk with nerve come what may. Some endeavours require a kind of egotism, a near autistic narrowness. Everything conspires against you – the habits of physics, the impulse to flee - & you’re weighed down by every dollop of commonsense dished up. Everyone will tell you your goal is impossible, pointless, stupid, wasteful so you hang tough. You back yourself & only yourself. This idiot resolve is all you have.”

Tom's choice.

“Magicium research has come on in leaps and bounds since you left, but it’s led to cases like mine. Denialists are protesting, saying it’s a sign of judgment. Some government voices are demanding we stop studying until we know more. But we might be taking steps towards changing The War!”

Nath's choice.

“Because,” said Thor, “when something goes wrong, the first thing I always think is, it is Loki’s fault. It saves a lot of time.”

Cliff's choice.

“Life’s like a fat orange, Frank thinks. When you’re young, you squeeze it hard and fast, trying to get all the juice in a hurry. When you’re older, you squeeze it slowly, savoring every drop. Because, one, you don’t know how many drops you have left, and, two, the last drops are the sweetest.”

Luke's choice.

“Our belief is often strongest when it should be weakest. That is the nature of hope.”

Mitch's choice.

“I find lateness exceptionally rude; it’s so disrespectful, implying unambiguously that you consider yourself and your own time to be so much more valuable than the other person’s.”

Pat's choice.

“Lots of rules are pointless,' he said, 'you don't have to follow everything. Make your own mind up about what is right.”

Craig's choice.

“They walked on, somehow in step, although all three of them were bent forever in different shapes by the pains that pulled them.”

Joel's choice.

"Centaine was trembling wildly. That big pale thing out there in the darkness was possessed of an unearthly menace, a palpable aura of evil, and she knew what it was. She had seen it before. She pressed herself flat to the earth, trying to cover Shasa with her own body."

Sam's choice.

“Hearing the truth is like grabbing smoke in our family,”

Cliff's choice.

“Yes, of course duct tape works in a near-vacuum. Duct tape works anywhere. Duct tape is magic and should be worshiped.”

Luke's choice.

“Every society gets the criminals it deserves” is her philosophy. “And the police force it’s willing to pay for, rather than the one it insists upon.”

Mitch's choice.

“Could he hold up a hand, tell them he had spent a thousand years learning this trick and others, tell them of the guns and the blood that had blessed them? Not with his mouth. But his hands could speak their own tale.”

Craig's choice.

“That’s good steel, that”.

Joel's choice.

“The rapidity with which one can completely change one’s ideas . . . and accommodate ourselves to a state of barbarism is wonderful.”

Sam's choice.

“Personally, I do not want to make you a man. Men are so very frail. Men break. Men die. No, I’ve always wished to make a god.”

Cliffs choice.

“I wasn’t destined to be an astronaut. I had to turn myself into one.”

Luke's choice.

“I don’t save the world for glory or power. I have neither and I don’t care for them. In fact, I quite like it that the world doesn’t know my name. I just do what I do for the people I love.”

Mitch;s choice.

“Me, I'm known for bruises and levelheadedness, for height and muscle and blasphemy, and the occasional sentimentality.”