13 Pan Macmillan books make Dymocks Top 101 list
Every year, Australian’s get to voting on for the Dymocks Top 101 list, full of all the must-read books as decided by the readers! Pan Macmillan is thrilled to announce that the 2020 Dymocks Top 101 features 13 of our incredible authors. This includes Markus Zusak in the number one spot with The Book Thief and number 46 for Bridge of Clay!
1 – The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
“…a beautifully balanced piece of storytelling…Unsettling, thought-provoking, life-affirming, triumphant and tragic, this is a novel of breathtaking scope, masterfully told. It is an important piece of work, but also a wonderful page-turner.” The Guardian
1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier and will become busier still.
Follow Liesel Meminger as she comes of age in Nazi Germany during WWII whose life is changed when she picks up an object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger’s Handbook, and it is her first act of book thievery.
5 – The Dry by Jane Harper
“Every so often a debut novel arrives that is so tightly woven and compelling it seems the work of a novelist in her prime. That’s what Jane Harper has given us with The Dry” John Hart, New York Times bestselling author of Redemption Road
After the death of his childhood friend, protagonist and Federal Police Investigator Aaron Falks returns to his home town that is small but has big secrets. He is loath to face the townsfolk who turned their backs on him twenty years earlier, but as questions mount, Falk is forced to probe deeper into the deaths of his hometown. Secrets long buried bubble to the surface in this thrilling Australian crime novel.
11- The Lost Man by Jane Harper
‘I absolutely loved The Lost Man. I devoured it in a day. Her best yet!’ Liane Moriarty
Two brothers meet at the border of their vast cattle properties under the unrelenting sun of outback Queensland, in this stunning new standalone novel from New York Times bestseller Jane Harper
They are at the stockman’s grave, a landmark so old, no one can remember who is buried there. But today, the scant shadow it casts was the last hope for their middle brother, Cameron. Did he lose hope and walk to his death? Because if he didn’t, the isolation of the outback leaves few suspects…
12 – Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
“So gripping I wanted to rush through the pages, but so beautifully written I wanted to linger over every sentence. Hannah Kent’s debut novel is outstanding.” Madeline Miller
Based on the gripping true story of the last woman ever executed in Ireland, Burial Rites follows Anges Magnusdottir who is condemned to death for her part in the brutal murder of two men. Burial Rites is a deeply moving novel about freedom and the ways we will risk everything for love. In beautiful, cut-glass prose, Hannah Kent portrays Iceland’s formidable landscape, and asks: how can one woman endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?
34 – Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
“Liane Moriarty produces novels that are miracles of structure as well as human insight” Sydney Morning Herald
A murder…A tragic accident…Or just parents behaving badly? What’s indisputable is that someone is dead. Following the lives of women who are at different crossroads, but they will all wind up in the same shocking place as their secrets bubble to the surface.
Big Little Lies is a brilliant take on ex-husbands and second wives, mothers and daughters, schoolyard scandal, and the little lies that can turn lethal.
38 – A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
“A singularly profound and moving work . . . It’s not often that you read a book of this length and find yourself thinking “I wish it was longer” but Yanagihara takes you so deeply into the lives and minds of these characters that you struggle to leave them behind.” The Times
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, is an immensely powerful and heartbreaking novel of brotherly love and the limits of human endurance. Following four best friends as they navigate life in New York City, A Little Life, is a harrowing, complex and incredible story of resilience.
39 – The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*** by Mark Manson
‘Hilarious, vulgar, and immensely thought-provoking. Only read if you’re willing to set aside all excuses and take an active role in living a f*cking better life.’ Steve Kamb
Sick of trying to generate positive thoughts to survive tough times? Then this is the book for you. Based on a fun mix of academic research and the life experience that comes from breaking the rules, Mark Manson is ready to explode that myth. The key to a good life, according to Manson, is the understanding that ‘sometimes life is messed up and we have to live with it’.
46 – Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak
“I am pleased to recommend…Markus Zusak’s extraordinary novel Bridge of Clay, which I suspect I’ll reread many times. It’s a sprawling, challenging, and endlessly rewarding book. But it also has the raw and real and unironized emotion that courses through all of Zusak’s books. I’m in awe of him.” John Green
The Dunbar boys bring each other up in a house run by their own rules. A family of ramshackle tragedy – their mother is dead, their father has fled – they love and fight, and learn to reckon with the adult world.
It is Clay, the quiet one, who will build a bridge; for his family, for his past, for his sins. He builds a bridge to transcend humanness. To survive.
71 – Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
“[An] escapist masterpiece… It’s a truly glorious thing to live inside the world of this book and to imagine it becoming reality, too.” – Vogue
America’s presidential son, Alex is handsome and charismatic and only has one problem: Alex has a beef with the actual prince, Henry, across the pond. And when the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an Alex-Henry altercation, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse. Now the heads of family and state devise a genius plan for damage control, a fake friendship. What neither of them planned for was just how deep and dangerous their ‘friendship’ would become.
72 – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
“Lively, sharply satirical, brilliantly written . . . ranks with the best set pieces in Mark Twain.”—The Atlantic
Arthur Dent was simply trying to stop his house from being demolished on a regular Thursday when his best friend announced that he’s an alien. Shortly they’ll be hurtling through space with nothing but their towels and an innocuous-looking book inscribed with the big, friendly words: DON’T PANIC.
85 – Me by Elton John
‘The rock memoir of the decade’ Daily Mail
In his first and only official autobiography, music icon Elton John reveals the truth about his extraordinary life, which is also the subject of the smash-hit film Rocketman. The result is Me – the joyously funny, honest and moving story of the most enduringly successful singer/songwriter of all time.
89 – The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty
“The story is cleverly plotted, full of suspense and so well-written that it pulls you in from the first page” Sunday Mirror
How well do you know your husband? How well do you know yourself?
Celia is a devoted mother and wife but he suburban bliss is thrown into turmoil when she stumbles across a letter title “For my wife, Cecilia Fitzpatrick, to be opened only in the event of my death”.
92 – Force of Nature by Jane Harper
Powerful, intriguing and recommended…Harper is wonderful at evoking fear and unease, and she draws a mesmeric picture of the terrifying Australian terrain, The Times
Five women go on a hike and only four return. The colleagues are forced to participate in a team-building exercise that means they have to trek through the Giralang Ranges. Alice started on the path and never returned and her last phone call was to Police Investigator Aaron Falk. He’s about to try untangle the web of suspicion.