"Publishers Weekly" lists Theft by Peter Carey ("A fallen-from-grace Aussie artist and his mentally handicapped brother are drawn into a counterfeit art conspiracy in Carey's heartbreaking novel.") in its Best Fiction of the year, and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak ("In this WWII novel narrated by Death, a nine-year-old girl develops a love of books and words, even as life in her small German town starts to unravel.") in its Children's Fiction best for 2006.
The Young Adult Library Services Association has listed its Best Books for Young Adults 2006 and Sonya Hartnett is included for Stripes of the Sidestep Wolf, a novel that was first published here in Australia in 1999. Of more recent vintage, they list also Black Juice by Margo Lanagan, Magic or Madness by Justine Larbalestier, and I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak.
The lists of best books from Australian newspapers are starting to appear now as well. In "The Australian", Kate Grenville choses Alex Wright's Carpentaria, Helen Garner's Joe Cinque's Consolation and Bain Attwood's Telling the Truth about Aboriginal History; Delia Falconer picks Patrick White's Riders in the Chariot, and The Best Australian Stories 2006, edited by Robert Drewe; Nicholas Rothwell plunks for Tony Roberts's Frontier Justice; Michelle de Kretser choses Josiane Behmoiras's first book, DoraB, a memoir of her mother; Carmen Callil lists Theft by Peter Carey and Everyman's Rules of Scientific Living by Carrie Tiffany; Sebastian Barry met the author and was then impressed with Alex Miller's Journey to the Stone Country; Debra Adelaide goes for Ursula Dubosarsky's The Red Shoe, and James Bradley's The Resurrectionist; Frank Moorhouse enjoyed M.J. Hyland's novels How the Light Gets In and Carry Me Down; Peter Temple was amused by Kel Robertson's Dead Set; and Nick Earls picked Tara June Winch's Swallow the Air. Among the critics Peter Craven reveals his catholic taste and went for Things I Didn't Know by Robert Hughes, Inga Clendinnen's Agamemnon's Kiss, Les Murray's verse in The Biplane Houses, David Malouf's Every Move You Make, and Anson Cameron's Lies I Told About a Girl; Rosemary Sorensen was grateful for Packer's Lunch by Neil Chenoweth, George Megalogenis's The Longest Decade, Kate Grenville's The Secret River, and Andrew McGahan's Underground; and, finally, Jodie Minus chose Ursula Dubosarsky's The Red Shoe and Shaun Tan's The Arrival.
