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Done. We finished the tour at QBD Kawana, Queensland, on 30 August 2024 with 398 bookshops visited.
Then there was the Whitsundays Festival: The Beach Boutique which is mainly secondhand stocked our books for the event. 399. And as we were leaving Australia for 2 months, WH Smith, Melbourne Airport, airside, had stock of THE GLASS HOUSE.
FOUR HUNDRED BOOKSHOPS.
In due course we’ll retire this website. It’s been a blast.
Thanks to all those who organised, attended or otherwise supported events, especially the bookshops and libraries. Thanks to Tania Chandler for creating and maintaining this website.
We’ve made good on our promise to donate royalties from copies of The Glass House sold at events to mental health charities: a few thousand dollars in total.
Did we get to ‘every bookshop’? As far as we know, we only missed seven that would stock The Glass House. Five declined our offer to visit; one had to open late the day we arrived and we missed them; for the last, we just couldn’t find a mutually-workable date.
We are:
Graeme Simsion (https://graemesimsion.com/), author of the Rosie Project series – six million copies sold in forty languages – and other international bestsellers, including Two Steps Forward, co-authored with…
… Anne Buist (https://annebuist.com/), professor of psychiatry, Chair of Women’s Mental Health at the University of Melbourne and author of five psychological thrillers including the Natalie King series.
Our latest joint novel (published by Hachette, April 2024) is The Glass House: ‘Your favourite TV medical drama, but set in an acute psychiatric ward and in a book.’ It’s the first of a planned series, following trainee psychiatrist Hannah Wright through the sub-specialties as she learns on the job. Thanks to ‘real’ booksellers, it hit number 1 on the Leading Edge bestseller list and is continuing to do well.
A sequel, The Oasis, will be published on 26 Feb 2025.
We involved local writers, mental-health workers, musicians, winemakers… And caught up with friends. Hardly an event without some connection.
From March to August 2024, we aimed to visit every bookshop (excluding second-hand and specialist) in Australia to meet booksellers and customers, sign books, give talks and run writing seminars.
We wanted to particularly invite mental health workers along, and, where it was allowed, buy them a drink. Celebrate a book that celebrates them.
We’re working with HStudios to make a documentary of the tour, focusing on the contributions and challenges of bricks-and-mortar bookshops.
We wanted to:
We visited all the big cities – of course – but we also managed to get to and do events at places that authors don’t visit so often. Anywhere there was a bookshop… Final itinerary here.
Royalties from copies of THE GLASS HOUSE sold at the events went to mental-health organisations. If an organisation participated in a particular event, we donated to them, but otherwise…
Victoria, NSW, ACT: Schizy Inc
Tasmania: Speak Up Stay ChatTY
Queensland: Micah Projects
Northern Territory: Sabrina’s Reach 4 Life
Western Australia: Ruah Community Services
South Australia: Villagehood
See the figures above! It was a blast: fantastic support from bookshops, libraries and readers.
A genuinely warm feeling at events. There seems to be a hunger for real books, real people, real connection. And real wine.
It was a bookshop tour, but THE GLASS HOUSE continues to do well.