Author Guide · Contemporary Fiction
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Graeme Simsion spent about thirty years in information technology, wrote textbooks on data modelling and built a consultancy of around seventy people before deciding, at fifty, to write fiction. His first novel began as a screenplay about a genetics professor who designs a sixteen-page questionnaire to find a wife. As a manuscript it won the Victorian Premier’s Award for an unpublished manuscript in 2012; published as The Rosie Project in 2013, it became one of the most successful Australian novels of the decade, and his books have since sold more than seven million copies in over forty languages. Since then he has written two Rosie sequels, a novel about a lost love, and two series with his wife, the psychiatrist Anne Buist. This guide covers his ten key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 10 key books · 2013–2026 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Graeme Simsion’s best-known book is The Rosie Project (2013), followed by The Rosie Effect (2014) and The Rosie Result (2019). With Anne Buist he wrote the walking novels Two Steps Forward (2017) and Two Steps Onward (2021), and the Menzies Mental Health series, which began with The Glass House (2024). Start with The Rosie Project: the sequels depend on it, and it shows his method in its plainest form.
Where to Start with Graeme Simsion
If you want the book that made his name
→ The Rosie Project (2013) — Don Tillman’s Wife Project.
If you want something for grown-up romantics
→ The Best of Adam Sharp (2016) — a lost love, a playlist and a week in France.
If you want a walking novel
→ Two Steps Forward (2017) — two strangers on the Camino, written with Anne Buist.
If you want hospital drama with real psychiatry
→ The Glass House (2024) — the first Menzies Mental Health novel.
10 Graeme Simsion Books, in Order
The Rosie Project
Don Tillman, a genetics professor in Melbourne who struggles with social conventions, sets out to find a partner with a scientific questionnaire, the Wife Project. Rosie, a bartender who fails every criterion, recruits him instead to find her biological father through DNA testing, a search that takes them to New York. It won the 2012 Victorian Premier’s Award for an unpublished manuscript and the 2014 Australian Book Industry Awards for Book of the Year and General Fiction, was longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and had sold more than 3.5 million copies by 2016.
The Rosie Effect
Don and Rosie are now married and living in New York, where Rosie is studying. When she becomes pregnant, Don approaches fatherhood the way he approaches everything else, with research and schedules, and his attempts to prepare go wrong in ways that put the marriage at risk.
The Best of Adam Sharp
Adam Sharp, an English IT consultant and part-time pub pianist in a settled but tired relationship, hears again from Angelina, the actress he had a brief affair with in Melbourne twenty-two years earlier. Their emails turn into a long-distance affair and an invitation to spend a week with her and her husband in France. Reviews were divided; the film rights were optioned by Toni Collette’s company Vocab Films in 2017.
Two Steps Forward
Zoe, a recently widowed Californian, and Martin, an English engineer recovering from a divorce and testing a prototype walking cart he designed, meet in Cluny and walk the Camino to Santiago de Compostela. Written in alternating chapters from Zoe’s and Martin’s points of view. The film rights were optioned by Fox Searchlight and Ellen DeGeneres.
The Rosie Result
Back in Melbourne, Don and Rosie’s eleven-year-old son Hudson is struggling at school, and the question of whether he is autistic is raised. Don, who has never accepted a label for himself, sets out to help Hudson fit in without changing who he is. It is the third and final book of the trilogy.
Two Steps Onward
Three years after the Camino, Zoe and Martin meet again to walk the Chemin d’Assise from France to Rome, joined by Zoe’s friend Camille, who has just learned she has multiple sclerosis, Martin’s daughter Sarah and others. Chapters again alternate between Zoe and Martin.
Creative Differences and Other Stories
The title novella follows Emily, a literary novelist, and Scott, a screenwriter, who wrote an international bestseller together and fell in love; now her manuscript has stalled, his solo novel has flopped, and an aspiring writer arrives with her own agenda. The stories come from across his career and include the first appearance of Don Tillman.
The Glass House
Hannah Wright, a psychiatry registrar, starts on the acute psychiatric unit of Menzies Hospital, with cases that include an eating disorder, postpartum psychosis and a politician’s suicide attempt. Buist, a professor of women’s mental health, supplies the clinical side of the series.
The Oasis
Hannah moves from the acute ward to Menzies’ outpatient clinic, the Oasis, where her patients’ problems include OCD, ice addiction and the after-effects of childhood abuse.
The General Hospital
Hannah’s next rotation takes her into the general hospital, seeing patients on the medical, surgical, obstetric and cancer wards, including a woman planning to sue her obstetrician, while her brother’s drinking and a family secret press on her private life.
In What Order to Read Graeme Simsion
The Rosie books should be read in order: The Rosie Project, The Rosie Effect, The Rosie Result. Each sequel picks up Don and Rosie’s life several years on and assumes you know what happened before. The same goes for the two Camino-style novels, since Two Steps Onward brings back Zoe and Martin from Two Steps Forward, and for the Menzies books, which follow Hannah Wright from one rotation to the next.
The Best of Adam Sharp and Creative Differences stand alone. If you are reading for the writing itself, finish with The Novel Project, his practical guide, which describes the planning method he uses.
A reading path
1. The Rosie Project (2013)
2. The Best of Adam Sharp (2016)
3. Two Steps Forward (2017)
4. The Rosie Result (2019)
5. The Glass House (2024)
Everything Else Graeme Simsion Published
Beyond the 10 key books: 4 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Spin-offs and writing guides
2
2 books · 2019–2022
- 2019Don Tillman’s Standardised Meal Systemrecipes and tips in Don Tillman’s voice
- 2022The Novel Projecta step-by-step guide to writing a novel, memoir or biography
Data modelling
2
2 books · 1994–2007
- 1994Data Modeling Essentialsa textbook; the third edition (2004) is with Graham Witt
- 2007Data Modeling Theory and Practicebased on his University of Melbourne PhD research
The years · 1956–2024
Quick facts about Graeme Simsion
- Known for
- Graeme Simsion is known for The Rosie Project, the comic novel about a socially awkward genetics professor’s scientific search for a wife, written after a first career in IT.
- 1956
- Born in Auckland, New Zealand
- 2024
- Menzies series begins with The Glass House
- Born
- 1956, Auckland, New Zealand; moved to Melbourne with his family at twelve
- Education
- Physics at Monash University; MBA; PhD in data modelling, University of Melbourne (2006); screenwriting at RMIT
- First career
- About thirty years in IT; founded the consultancy Simsion Bowles and Associates
- Partner
- The psychiatrist and novelist Anne Buist, co-author of the Two Steps and Menzies books
- Honours
- Victorian Premier’s Award for an Unpublished Manuscript (2012); ABIA Book of the Year (2014)
- Sales
- More than seven million copies in over forty languages
The red mark is 2013: The Rosie Project, the debut that turned a data modeller into a bestselling novelist.
How Graeme Simsion Writes: Systems, Then Feelings
Simsion came to fiction from data modelling, and he plans novels the same way: structure, character and scene outlines first, drafting second. He set out the method in The Novel Project (2022). The Rosie Project also went through screenwriting first. He wrote it as a screenplay during a screenwriting course at RMIT before turning it into a novel, which helps explain its tight, scene-driven plotting.
His comedy comes from point of view. Don Tillman narrates in a literal, precise voice and sees no joke in his own schedules, questionnaires and meal plans, so the reader sees what Don misses. Simsion has said Don “may or may not have Asperger’s Syndrome” and that he never says. He modelled Don on people he knew from IT and university science departments, not on clinical research.
With Anne Buist he writes in alternating chapters, Zoe’s and Martin’s, in the Two Steps books, so each walk is seen from two sides. In the Menzies series Buist’s psychiatric expertise shapes the cases, and the comedy gives way to hospital drama. For more novels that combine comedy with serious subjects, see the guides to Liane Moriarty, Fredrik Backman and Rachel Joyce below.
Watch
Graeme Simsion on The Rosie Effect
On ABC Radio National’s Books and Arts Daily in 2014, Graeme Simsion talks about The Rosie Effect, the sequel to The Rosie Project, in which Don Tillman and Rosie face impending parenthood in New York. From the official ABC Arts channel.
Frequently asked questions about Graeme Simsion’s books
How many books has Graeme Simsion written?
Ten novels and fiction collections are on this page, from The Rosie Project (2013) to The General Hospital (2026); five of them are co-written with Anne Buist. He has also written Don Tillman’s Standardised Meal System (2019), the writing guide The Novel Project (2022) and two books on data modelling.
What are Graeme Simsion’s books in order?
The Rosie Project (2013), The Rosie Effect (2014), The Best of Adam Sharp (2016), Two Steps Forward (2017), The Rosie Result (2019), Two Steps Onward (2021), Creative Differences and Other Stories (2023), The Glass House (2024), The Oasis (2025) and The General Hospital (2026).
What is the order of the Rosie Project books?
The Rosie Project (2013), The Rosie Effect (2014) and The Rosie Result (2019). The Rosie Result is the final book of the trilogy. Don Tillman also narrates Don Tillman’s Standardised Meal System, and his first appearance is a short story in Creative Differences and Other Stories.
Where should I start with Graeme Simsion?
With The Rosie Project. The two sequels build on it, and it is the clearest example of what he does: a literal-minded narrator, a systematic plan, and a story that goes somewhere the plan did not allow for. If you want a standalone, try The Best of Adam Sharp.
What is Graeme Simsion’s most famous book?
The Rosie Project (2013). It won the 2012 Victorian Premier’s Award for an unpublished manuscript and the 2014 Australian Book Industry Awards for Book of the Year and General Fiction, and had sold more than 3.5 million copies in over forty countries by 2016. Bill Gates recommended it.
Is The Rosie Project being made into a film?
It has been in development for more than a decade. Sony Pictures optioned it in 2014 and Simsion wrote the first draft of the screenplay. Directors and stars have been attached and left since, among them Jennifer Lawrence in 2015. In 2024 Tom Holland’s company Billy17 was reported as producer. No film had been released at the time of writing.
Does Don Tillman have Asperger’s?
The books never say. Simsion has said Don “may or may not have Asperger’s Syndrome, I never say”. He has said Don himself would not identify with that label. The Rosie Result takes up the question directly through Don’s son, Hudson. Most autistic readers and critics have responded positively. A minority, including the researcher Anna N. de Hooge, have argued that the book portrays autistic people as superior in a way that is itself a stereotype.
Who is Anne Buist?
A psychiatrist and professor of women’s mental health at the University of Melbourne, a crime novelist in her own right, and Simsion’s wife. They co-wrote Two Steps Forward, Two Steps Onward and the Menzies Mental Health series.
What awards has Graeme Simsion won?
For The Rosie Project: the 2012 Victorian Premier’s Award for an unpublished manuscript, and the 2014 Australian Book Industry Awards for Book of the Year and General Fiction Book of the Year; it was also longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. His screenplay version won an Australian Writers’ Guild award for best unproduced romantic comedy.
What did Graeme Simsion do before writing novels?
He worked in information technology for about thirty years, as a programmer, database specialist and consultant. He founded Simsion Bowles and Associates, wrote the textbook Data Modeling Essentials and earned a PhD in data modelling. He decided to write fiction at fifty.
Footnotes
- Graeme Simsion — Wikipedia
- The Rosie Project — Wikipedia
- About Graeme — graemesimsion.com
- Graeme Simsion — Text Publishing
- Two Steps Onward — Kirkus Reviews
- Author Graeme Simsion on Asperger’s and The Rosie Project — KUT, 2014
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Don may or may not have Asperger’s Syndrome, I never say.”
— Graeme Simsion, interview with KUT 90.5, Austin (2014)
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