The Age Book of the Year Awards 2025
Twelve books have made the shortlists for this year’s entries in The Age Book of The Year awards.
The six books on the fiction shortlist have been described as particularly exciting in “eclecticism and range” by the judges, author and critic Bram Presser, and The Age and Sydney Morning Herald’s Canberra bureau chief Michelle Griffin.
The books on the fiction shortlist are:
- The Burrow by Melanie Cheng
- Depth of Field by Kirsty Iltners
- Vortex by Rodney Hall
- Highway 13 by Fiona McFarlane *
- The Kingdom of Dust by David Dyer
- Ghost Cities by Siang Lu *
The non-fiction shortlisted books are:
- Cactus Pear For My Beloved by Samah Sabawi
- Crimes of the Cross by Anne Manne *
- Australian Gospel by Lech Blaine
- The Bark Petitions by Clare Wright
- Model Minority Gone Rogue by Qin Qin
- A Season of Death by Mark Raphael Baker.
The 44th Age Book of the Year winners each receive $10,000, courtesy of the Copyright Agency’s cultural fund, and the winners will be announced by Age editor Patrick Elligett at The Athenaeum Theatre on May 8 as part of the opening night of this year’s Melbourne Writers Festival.
Books marked * have been reviewed by QRC. Click on the book’s title to read our review.