We always suspected that the Potts Point crowd had the best literary taste in town and now it's confirmed. We've tallied our best-selling 50 books for 2016 and the verdict is in - you buy the best books and we love selling them to you.
1. The Last Painting of Sara de Vos
Set in the art world, this is an addictively interesting story of forgery, betrayal and the history of a very special painting. There was a lot of love for this excellent novel in store, and we're proud to say it's our number one pick for 2016.
2. Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
Commonwealth was one of the all time customer and staff favourites from last year. It's a tale of blended families, dysfunctional relationships, but above all the redemptive power of love and loyalty. Put simply, we worship Ann Patchett and would read the back of a cereal box if she wrote it.
3. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
This is the book that got everyone talking last year. And crying. Yanagihara follows four young college friends as they grow up, fall in love, fail, succeed and attempt to find real estate in New York City. Be warned, this novel is more than it seems and has a disturbingly dark underbelly that only the bravest will make it through without tears.
4. My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
FERRANTE FEVER. We have it, and so do you apparently. And yes, it's contagious. If you haven't yet read this Italian four-novel series about Lila and Lena, the fiercest, smartest and strangest little girls in Naples you are missing out on an immersive world of violence, politics, proto-feminism and dirty words in dialect.
5. Everywhere I Look by Helen Garner
Helen Garner, praise! This time our national treasure has turned her acute, witty eye to all sorts of topics from friendship and writing to the indignities of old age. The woman can write a sentence hoo boy.
6. Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift
Graham Swift's new fiction is a sensual novella that you will no doubt gobble up in a single sitting. Set in 20th century Britain at a time of intense change, but covering just one afternoon, Mothering Sunday is a little window a world of a simple housemaid, whose life is anything but straightforward.
7. The Course of Love by Alain de Botton
Alain de Botton shares his thoughts on love, relationships and marriage in this poignantly realistic novel featuring all of our deepest fears, flaws and desires. Love has never sounded so logical than in de Botton's capable hands.
8. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
This moving historical novel has been enchanting staff and customers for a while now. If you haven't had a chance to read it - it's not too late to sink into Doerr's stunning sentences and meet characters who will stubbornly lodge in your heart and never leave.
9. Australian Fish & Seafood Cookbook
Delicious fish and seafood. People who know what they're doing tell you how to make it taste good. That is all. So basically, perfection in a cookbook.
10. The Road to Ruin by Niki Savva
Scandal. Controversy. Onions. The Abbot Credlin saga is stranger than fiction and Sava's vicious wit and stable of untold stories will keep you reading and disbelieving until you've thrown your hands and eyebrows up in the air so often you don't bother taking them down again.
11. The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood
12. Nutshell by Ian McEwan
13.Dinner with Edward by Isabel Vincent
14. Midnight Watch by David Dyer
15. The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben
16. Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf
17. The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
18. Farewell to the Father by Tim Elliott
19. The Noise of Time by Julian barnes
20. The Sellout by Paul Beatty
21. Aunts Up the Cross by Robin Dalton
22. The Secret Recipe for Second Chances by JD Barrett
23. The Dry by Jane Harper
24. The Girls by Emma Cline
25. The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante
26. Kings Cross: A Pictorial History by Anne-Marie Whitaker
27. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by JK Rowling
28. The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson
29. Talking to My Country by Stan Grant
30. The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo
31. Truly, Madly, Guilty by Liane Moriarty
32. Hot Milk by Deborah Levy
33. The Mothers by Brit Bennett
34. Rod Campbell's Aussie Animals
35. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
36. Ada Twist, Scientist by Andrea Beaty
37. The Odd Woman and the City by Vivian Gornick
38. Quarterly Essay 63: The Enemy Within by Don Watson
39. Oi Frog! by Kes Gray
40. Exposure by Helen Dunmore
41. The 78-Story Treehouse by Andy Griffiths
42. Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance
43. The Bricks That Built the Houses by Kate Tempest
44. Between a Wolf and a Dog by Georgia Blain
45. The Good People by Hannah Kent
46. A Divided Spy by Charles Cumming
47. Ghost Empire by Richard Fidler
48. Mr Chicken Arriva a Roma by Leigh Hobbs
49. The Riviera Set by Mary Lovell
50. Waters of Eternal Youth by Donna Leon
Happy reading for 2017!
-- Love the PPBS team