![Sexuality is fluid, it's not found in a gene or a haircut.](/web/20161017215013im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/y/s/c/d/image.related.wideLandscape.300x169.gs46ia.png/1476695052536.jpg)
Books
![Sexuality is fluid, it's not found in a gene or a haircut.](/web/20161017215013im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/y/s/c/d/image.related.wideLandscape.300x169.gs46ia.png/1476695052536.jpg)
Co-winner from 2014 is up for another prize in PM's Literary Awards
![Steven Carroll was joint winner of the 2014 award and is shortlisted again.](/web/20161017215013im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/4/2/0/h/image.related.landscape.120x80.gs42qm.png/1476698077787.jpg)
A wide spectrum of authors - in age, gender, politics and style - is represented on the shortlists for the 2016 Prime Minister's Literary Awards, announced on Monday.
How horrors of Rwandan killing fields became award-winning book
![Co-authors and friends, James Roy and Noel Zihabamwe.](/web/20161017215013im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/1/o/p/6/image.related.landscape.120x80.gs0gs2.png/1476698133480.jpg)
A collaboration between writer James Roy and refugee advocate Noel Zihabamwe has led to friendship and a prestigious book award.
Carmel Bird wins the $20,000 Patrick White Award
![Carmel Bird has won the Patrick White Award.](/web/20161017215013im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/4/4/l/u/image.related.landscape.120x80.gs44rb.png/1476689291795.jpg)
Unlike some previous winners of the Patrick White Award for Australian writers who have not received their due recognition, several of Carmel Bird's books are still in print.
First look: Kidman and Witherspoon take on Aussie bestseller
![Reese Witherspoon in the first trailer for <i>Big Little Lies.</i>](/web/20161017215013im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/3/p/o/w/image.related.landscape.120x80.gs3ove.png/1476674361508.jpg)
The series, based on the novel by Sydney author Liane Moriarty, will premiere on HBO next year.
Top 10 bestsellers
![Working Class Boy, by Jimmy Barnes.](/web/20161017215013im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/u/s/l/m/image.related.landscape.120x80.gs3r41.png/1476665291159.jpg)
Jimmy Barnes' memoir stays at the top of the bookshop charts.
How will Game of Thrones end? One woman may have the answer
![White Walker.](/web/20161017215013im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/3/a/s/o/image.related.landscape.120x80.gs2wnv.png/1476684221904.jpg)
Academic and author Carolyne Larrington has a fair idea of how the blood-and-guts fantasy will wrap things up.
Carmel Bird: books that changed me
![Author Carmel Bird has published her 10th novel, Family Skeleton.](/web/20161017215013im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/s/i/z/k/image.related.landscape.120x80.gs1ist.png/1476420676384.jpg)
Australian author Carmel Bird reveals the works that shaped her.
Melbourne writer wins award at British crime-writing awards
![Melbourne writer Mark Brandi has won the Debut Dagger at the British Crime Writers Association awards.](/web/20161017215013im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/2/c/v/u/image.related.landscape.120x80.gs2dfm.png/1476414546799.jpg)
Mark Brandi's unpublished manuscript has won a gong at the British crime-writing awards but he wasn't sure it was actually a crime novel.
Undercover: last literary awards of 2016 and a New Yorker Minute
![Israeli short story writer Etgar Keret: A recommended read by The New Yorker Minute.](/web/20161017215013im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/0/e/7/p/image.related.landscape.120x80.gs0d0e.png/1476428310995.jpg)
Awards will help with Christmas shopping.
Litbits October 15, 2016
![Tim Cope, who travelled 10,000 kilometres on horesback from Mongolia to Hungary, is one of 50 explorers featured in the ...](/web/20161017215013im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/l/7/q/t/n/image.related.landscape.120x80.grzmsi.png/1476226363011.jpg)
Literary news and events in Canberra.
Wordplay: the evolution of English upsets the hoi polloi
!["Moot, of course, is not alone in the shadowland of misused words." Illustration: Joe Benke](/web/20161017215013im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/z/1/k/c/image.related.landscape.120x80.gryo15.png/1476428382315.jpg)
The morphing path to malapropisms.
Into the heart of South Africa's darkness
![Eben Venter writes about South Africa from his new home in Lismore.](/web/20161017215013im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/y/s/8/6/image.related.landscape.120x80.grys35.png/1476428222312.jpg)
South Africa is the setting of this powerful tale of displacement.
The top 10 best selling military and history books in Australia.
![Ghost Empire by Richard Fidler.](/web/20161017215013im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/q/5/t/s/image.related.landscape.120x80.grr8ic.png/1476138555477.jpg)
Australia's top-selling military and history books.
Lives of the desert mapped on an artist's skin
![Artist and author Kim Mahood in her studio near Canberra.](/web/20161017215013im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/y/r/o/n/image.related.landscape.120x80.gryrqc.png/1476421324034.jpg)
Kim Mahood, an artist who writes exceptionally well, is fond of the expression "paying attention".
Top 10 independents
!['Fight Like A Girl' by Clementine Ford is out now through Allen & Unwin.](/web/20161017215013im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/q/5/t/z/image.related.landscape.120x80.grymjn.png/1476075436803.jpg)
Clementine Ford's arguments about how and why women should fight back at their treatment in society is No. 1 in the independent bookshop charts.
To live fully is better than to survive – Susan Duncan
![Author Susan Duncan with her dogs, Scruff and Red Girl, on her farm in the Manning Valley, NSW.](/web/20161017215013im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/x/o/i/c/image.related.landscape.120x80.grxoci.png/1476430204901.jpg)
The author hopes she won't regret the risk she took in writing her latest memoir.
Born to Run & Working Class Boy: Dreams come true in rock'n'roll
![Bruce Springsteen takes readers on a terrific road trip.](/web/20161017215013im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/y/j/t/o/image.related.landscape.120x80.grykbl.png/1476420895457.jpg)
For both Bruce Springsteen and Jimmy Barnes the rock'n'roll escape is a death-defying miracle, which is emblematic of their generation.
Maggie Joel: books that changed me
![Writing fiction for 20 years: Author Maggie Joel.](/web/20161017215013im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/x/o/m/d/image.related.landscape.120x80.grxom6.png/1476520758304.jpg)
Maggie Joel has been writing fiction for 20 years and her short stories have been widely publisher in Australian literary magazines and on ABC radio. The Safest Place in London (Allen & Unwin), her fourth novel, tells the story of two families whose lives are changed by the London Blitz in World War II.
Dirt Road: James Kelman's fine novel of a father and son in mourning
![Dirt Road By James Kelman](/web/20161017215013im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/x/2/h/7/image.related.landscape.120x80.grx2sn.png/1475802170138.jpg)
James Kelman is hugely influential as an author for good reason and Dirt Road is a fine example of his work.
The Bunting Quest: Steven Marcuson's pacy cartographic thriller
![The Bunting Quest, by Steven Marcuson.](/web/20161017215013im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/x/1/j/y/image.related.landscape.120x80.grx23g.png/1475800851601.jpg)
Steven Marcuson's The Bunting Quest has similarities to Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, except that it's better.
The Cleanskin: Laura Bloom's unsettling novel of buried intrigues
![The Cleanskin, by Laura Bloom.](/web/20161017215013im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/x/1/6/j/image.related.landscape.120x80.grx1bk.png/1475800484886.jpg)
Laura Bloom's The Cleanskin lays bare the personal cost of sectarian conflict.
Private Citizens: A smart satire on American youth
![Private Citizens By Tony Tulathimutte](/web/20161017215013im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/x/0/o/6/image.related.landscape.120x80.grx128.png/1475799645340.jpg)
Tony Tulathimutte's Private Citizens is a whip-smart satire on a generation born into a perfect storm of privilege and disappointment.
Waiting for the real author to say 'I am Elena Ferrante'
![Claudio Gatti claims he has proved translator Anita Raja is the real Elena Ferrante.](/web/20161017215013im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/w/a/x/r/image.related.landscape.120x80.grwmpa.png/1475832849965.jpg)
Even grown-ups want to believe in fairytales, as a journalist found when public outrage greeted his "unmasking" of the best-selling Italian novelist Elena Ferrante this week.
Hitler was true author 1923 book hailing him, author says
![The face of Adolf Hitler is projected onto a 3D canvas as part of an art installation during a rehearsal for the 'Berlin ...](/web/20161017215013im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/r/y/7/3/image.related.landscape.120x80.grww14.png/1475794294311.jpg)
It's 1923, and Hitler suddenly decides he needs to boost his national profile.
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