Winners of the 2023 Indie Book Awards Announced!

Winners of the 2023 Indie Book Awards Announced!

Thirteen years after Jasper Jones was awarded Book Of The Year (in 2009), Australian independent booksellers are thrilled to announce Runt by Craig Silvey as their favourite book from last year, and the winner of The Indie Book Awards 2023 Book of the Year.

This is Craig’s second Indie BOTY win and is only the second Children’s book to win the Indie BOTY in the history of the awards. We also had Craig in our office to record a podcast, where he and Cheryl discussed the bonds between dogs and humans, and Runt. You can listen to it here.

The Awards recognise and celebrate indie booksellers as the number one supporters of Australian authors. What makes our Indies uniquely placed to judge and recommend the best Aussie books of the past year to their customers and readers, is their incredible passion and knowledge, their contribution to the cultural diversity of the Australian reading public by recommending books beyond the big brands, and their love of quality writing.

The individual category winners in Fiction, Debut Fiction, Non-Fiction, Illustrated Non-Fiction, Children’s and Young Adult were also announced. From these six category winners, the independent booksellers selected the best of the best – the 2023 Book of the Year.

The winners of the 2023 Indie Book Awards are:

BOOK OF THE YEAR

Runt by Craig Silvey (Allen & Unwin)

FICTION

Horse by Geraldine Brooks (Hachette Australia)

NON-FICTION

The Book of Roads And Kingdoms by Richard Fidler (ABC Books, HarperCollins Australia)

DEBUT FICTION

All That’s Left Unsaid by Tracey Lien (HQ Fiction, HarperCollins)

ILLUSTRATED NON-FICTION

First Nations Food Companion by Damien Coulthard and Rebecca Sullivan (Murdoch Books)

CHILDREN’S

Runt by Craig Silvey (Allen & Unwin)

YOUNG ADULT

The Brink by Holden Sheppard (Text Publishing)

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                    Congrats to all the winners! Super excited for Craig Silvey and “Runt”! I’ve been wanting to read it. Hope it’s easy to turn those memorable moments into a live photo GIF for sharing!

                  5. fake stake says:

                    Congrats to all the winners of the Indie Book Awards! “Runt” sounds amazing, especially since it’s about dogs! I wonder what the fake stake definition is in the book? I might have to pick it up and give it a read myself. Looks like some great Aussie books this year!

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                    Congrats to Craig AI Baby Generator winners! It’s so great to see indie bookstores celebrating Aussie authors. I’ll definitely be adding “Runt” to my reading list! Sounds like a heartwarming story.

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                  35. Scrach io says:

                    It’s fantastic that Runt by Craig Silvey won Book of the Year, and even better that it’s only the second Children’s book to do so in the awards’ history. As someone interested in how books across genres are received, this is a really interesting point. It makes me curious about what resonated so strongly with the independent booksellers.

                  36. Runt winning feels right somehow. Silvey has this knack for writing books that work across age groups without talking down to anyone. I remember Jasper Jones being everywhere back in 2009, and it is interesting to see him come back to this award with something so different in tone. The category winners list is solid this year too. There is usually at least one head-scratcher but this feels like a group of books people will still be reading in a decade.

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                    It is truly remarkable to see Craig Silvey achieve this milestone, with Runt becoming only the second children’s book ever to win the overall Indie Book of the Year. This double win—coming over a decade after Jasper Jones—solidifies his place as a beloved staple of Australian literature. By celebrating these awards, we honor the independent booksellers whose passion and expertise continue to champion diverse, high-quality stories for readers of all ages.
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                    Craig Silvey winning Book of the Year again after thirteen years is remarkable. Runt being only the second children’s book to take the top prize says something about how seriously indie booksellers take quality writing for younger readers, not just the usual literary fiction suspects. The podcast with Cheryl sounds worth a listen too, especially given how much Silvey clearly understands the bond between dogs and humans. For anyone working on visual content around book launches or author events, tools like GPT Image 2 can handle promo imagery without needing a full design team. Indies recommending beyond the big brands is what keeps Australian publishing interesting.

                  41. Craig Silvey winning Book of the Year twice now, and with a children’s book no less, says something about how seriously Australian authors take younger readers. Runt clearly landed with the indie booksellers in a way that crossed age categories, which is rare. The podcast on dog-human bonds sounds worth a listen, especially given how central that relationship is to the story. For teachers or book clubs looking to build discussion around this year’s winners, there’s a tool at AI Quiz Maker that can generate comprehension questions from any text. Indies recommending beyond the big brands is what keeps the local scene alive, and Silvey’s double win feels like a validation of that curatorial instinct.

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