Paperback rioters: music biz gatecrashes book industry awards

A number of names from the music industry are expected to make an appearance – virtually or in person – at the Australian Book Industry Awards on April 28 at Sydney’s Carriageworks.

Blues singer-songwriter Ash Grunwald is performing while tomes by or about Nick Cave, Archie Roach and Paul Kelly made the shortlist.

For the first time, the public can attend, and the night will be livestreamed on YouTube.

Roach is up in two categories. Tell Me Why – where his gravelly narration gave greater poignancy to a life of stolen at two, homeless alcoholic in his teens and survivor and legend status at the end gave it greater poignancy – is nominated in the Audio Book of the Year category.

The release through Simon & Schuster Australia was shortlisted for the 2020 ABIA Biography Book of the Year and won the 2020 Indie Book of the Year Non-Fiction and the $25,000 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Indigenous Writing.

Took The Children Away (Simon & Schuster Australia) with illustrations by his late wife Ruby Hunter, is a contender for Book of the Year for Younger Children (ages 7-12).

The acclaim Sydney writer Mark Mordue received for the research he did on Boy On Fire: The Young Nick Cave (HarperCollins, Fourth Estate) explains why it’s up against those by Malcolm Turnbull in Biography Book of the Year.

The first volume, on his adolescence, touched on the ways his country upbringing, family relationships and friendships formed in boarding school, added to the Cave legacy.

Also in the top category is Stuart Coupe’s Paul Kelly (Hachette Australia), whose status as both a senior music journalist and a former manager of Kelly’s, gave him access to hundreds of relatives, colleagues and friends that gave a definitive portrait, from the excesses to striking lyrical skills and generosity to peers.