Top 5 Favourite Summer Read Books

The top five Summer Read books, as voted by members of the public, were: 

• No 1
  I am Melba by Ann Blainey (Black Inc) 
  A gripping account of Dame Nellie Melba's life, from defying her father and escaping to Paris, to becoming Australia's first international singing star.
• No 2
  Blood Sunset by Jarad Henry (Allen & Unwin)
  In this enthralling novel, a middle-aged detective uncovers a shady world of drug dealing and paedophilia linked to a teenager's death in St Kilda.
• No 3
  Radical Melbourne by Jeff Sparrow & Jill Sparrow (Vulgar)
  This exploration of Melbourne's hidden alternative political history reveals the struggles gone by in familiar inner-city streets and buildings.
• No 4
  Addition by Toni Jordan (Text)
  The engaging story of Grace Vandenburg, who obsessively counts everything in her daily life, until she meets Seamus and numbers can no longer hold her world together.
• No 5
  Beaten by a Blow (Penguin) by Dennis McIntosh
  The gritty memoir of a young sheep-shearer learning life's hard lessons in the tough environment of the shearing sheds.