List
ABC Radio National's Top 100 Australian Books (2026)
100 books Numbered Discoverable by Booko Admin
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51
The Light Between Oceans: A Novel
ML Stedman · 2012
Richard and Judy summer bookclub read 2013, Goodreads category winner, and longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2013, stunning story of a lighthouse keeper and his wife who face a life-changing moral dilemma. A boat washes up on the shore of a remote lighthouse keeper's island. It holds a dead man - and a crying baby. The only two islanders, Tom and his wife Izzy, are about to make a devastating decision. They break the rules and follow their hearts. What happens next will break yours.
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52
Horse
Geraldine Brooks · 2021
'He tilted his desk lamp so that the light fell on the image. The head of a bright bay colt gazed out of the canvas, the expression in the eyes unusual and haunting.' A discarded painting in a roadside clean-up, forgotten bones in a research archive, and Lexington, the greatest racehorse in US history. From these strands of fact, Geraldine Brooks weaves a sweeping story of spirit, obsession and injustice across American history. Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South, even as the nation reels towards war. An itinerant young artist who makes his name from paintings of the horse takes up arms for the Union and reconnects with the stallion and his groom on a perilous night far from the glamour of any racetrack. New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a nineteenth-century equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance. Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the horse - one studying the stallion's bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success. With the moral complexity of March and a multi-stranded narrative reminiscent of People of the Book, this enthralling novel is a gripping reckoning with the legacy of enslavement and racism in America. Horse is the latest masterpiece from a writer with a prodigious talent for bringing the past to life. Praise for Geraldine Brooks: 'What Brooks does ... is set her reader on a great search by opening up a compelling vista of humanity and leaving you hankering after more' Australian Book Review 'Powerful storytelling, its landscape and time evoked in lyrical prose ... a compelling read, contemporary in its relevance' The Guardian Australia 'There's something bordering on the supernatural about Geraldine Brooks. She seems able to transport herself back to earlier time periods, to time travel' The Boston Globe 'A master at bringing the past alive ... in her skilful hands the issues of the past echo our own deepest concerns' The Washington Post 'Brooks is as adventurous a novelist as she was once a journalist ... her journalistic sense of story has remained vibrant' The New York Times
from $18.89 7 shopsCompare prices -
53
Stone Yard Devotional
Charlotte Wood · 2023
A woman abandons her city life and marriage to return to the place she grew up, finding solace in a small religious community hidden away on the stark plains of the Monaro. She does not believe in God, doesn't know what prayer is, and finds herself living this strange, reclusive life almost by accident. As she gradually adjusts to the rhythms of monastic life, she ruminates on her childhood in the nearby town. She finds herself turning again and again to thoughts of her mother, whose early death she can't forget. Disquiet interrupts this secluded life with three visitations. First comes a terrible mouse plague, each day signalling a new battle against the rising infestation. Second is the return of the skeletal remains of a sister who left the community decades before to minister to deprived women in Thailand - then disappeared, presumed murdered. Finally, a troubling visitor to the monastery pulls the narrator further back into her past. With each of these disturbing arrivals, the woman faces some deep questions. Can a person be truly good? What is forgiveness? Is loss of hope a moral failure? And can the business of grief ever really be finished? A meditative and deeply moving novel from the Stella Prize-winning author of The Natural Way of Things and The Weekend.
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54
Schindler's list
Thomas Keneally · 1982
REISSUED AS A SCEPTRE 30TH CLASSIC, with a new afterword by the author.In the shadow of Auschwitz, a flamboyant German industrialist grew into a living legend to the Jews of Cracow. He was a womaniser, a heavy drinker and a bon viveur, but to them he became a saviour. This is the extraordinary story of Oskar Schindler, who risked his life to protect Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland and who was transformed by the war into a man with a mission, a compassionate angel of mercy.
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55
The Magic Pudding
Norman Lindsay · 1965
Bunyip Bluegum would never have met Bill Barnacle, the sailor, his friend Sam Sawnoff, the penguin bold, and Albert, the magic pudding, if it had not been for his Uncle Wattleberry's whiskers. For it was on account of these whiskers that Bunyip decided to leave home and become a travelling gentleman of leisure.
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56
The Cook's Companion
Stephanie Alexander · 1998
The Cook's Companion has established itself as the kitchen 'bible' in over 500,000 homes since it was first published in 1996. In 2004, Stephanie Alexander added over 300 new recipes as well as 12 new chapters in an updated edition. This latest revision includes two major new chapters, two expanded chapters, 70 new recipes and a complete revision of the text to reflect changes in the marketplace and new regulations.
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57
The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart
Holly Ringland · 1996
An enchanting and captivating novel, about how our untold stories haunt us - and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive. After her family suffers a tragedy, nine-year-old Alice Hart is forced to leave her idyllic seaside home. She is taken in by her grandmother, June, a flower farmer who raises Alice on the language of Australian native flowers, a way to say the things that are too hard to speak. Under the watchful eye of June and the women who run the farm, Alice settles, but grows up increasingly frustrated by how little she knows of her family's story. In her early twenties, Alice's life is thrown into upheaval again when she suffers devastating betrayal and loss. Desperate to outrun grief, Alice flees to the dramatically beautiful central Australian desert. In this otherworldly landscape Alice thinks she has found solace, until she meets a charismatic and ultimately dangerous man. Spanning two decades, set between sugar cane fields by the sea, a native Australian flower farm, and a celestial crater in the central desert, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart follows Alice's unforgettable journey, as she learns that the most powerful story she will ever possess is her own.
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58
The Yield
Tara June Winch · 2019
The yield in English is the reaping, the things that man can take from the land. In the language of the Wiradjuri yield is the things you give to, the movement, the space between things- baayanha. Knowing that he will soon die, Albert 'Poppy' Gondiwindi takes pen to paper. His life has been spent on the banks of the Murrumby River at Prosperous House, on Massacre Plains. Albert is determined to pass on the language of his people and everything that was ever remembered. He finds the words on the wind. August Gondiwindi has been living on the other side of the world for ten years when she learns of her grandfather's death. She returns home for his burial, wracked with grief and burdened with all she tried to leave behind. Her homecoming is bittersweet as she confronts the love of her kin and news that Prosperous is to be repossessed by a mining company. Determined to make amends she endeavours to save their land - a quest that leads her to the voice of her grandfather and into the past, the stories of her people, the secrets of the river. Profoundly moving and exquisitely written, Tara June Winch's The Yield is the story of a people and a culture dispossessed. But it is as much a celebration of what was and what endures, and a powerful reclaiming of Indigenous language, storytelling and identity.
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59
The Happiest Man on Earth
Eddie Jaku · 2020
Life can be beautiful if you make it beautiful. It is up to you. Eddie Jaku always considered himself a German first, a Jew second. He was proud of his country. But all of that changed on 9 November 1938, when he was beaten, arrested and taken to a concentration camp. Over the next seven years, Eddie faced unimaginable horrors every day, first in Buchenwald, then in Auschwitz, then on the Nazi death march. He lost family, friends, his country. Because he survived, Eddie made the vow to smile every day. He pays tribute to those who were lost by telling his story, sharing his wisdom and living his best possible life. He now believes he is the 'happiest man on earth'. Published as Eddie turns 100, this is a powerful, heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful memoir of how happiness can be found even in the darkest of times.
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60
The Man from Snowy River
A. Paterson · 1992
Tells the story of an Australian cowboy who rounded up a herd of wild horses all by himself.
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61
Too Much Lip
Melissa Lucashenko · 2018
Too much lip, her old problem from way back. And the older she got, the harder it seemed to get to swallow her opinions. The avalanche of bullshit in the world would drown her if she let it; the least she could do was raise her voice in anger. Wise-cracking Kerry Salter has spent a lifetime avoiding two things - her hometown and prison. But now her Pop is dying and she's an inch away from the lockup, so she heads south on a stolen Harley. Kerry plans to spend twenty-four hours, tops, over the border. She quickly discovers, though, that Bundjalung country has a funny way of grabbing on to people. Old family wounds open as the Salters fight to stop the development of their beloved river. And the unexpected arrival on the scene of a good-looking dugai fella intent on loving her up only adds more trouble - but then trouble is Kerry's middle name. Gritty and darkly hilarious, Too Much Lip offers redemption and forgiveness where none seems possible.
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62
Are We There Yet?
Alison Lester · 2004
The year I turned eight, Mum and Dad took us on a trip around Australia. Luke, Billy and I missed school for the whole winter term. Join Grace and her family on their adventurous and sometimes funny expedition. A warm, heartfelt story based on an actual journey undertaken by the much-loved, award-winning author and illustrator, Alison Lester.
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63
Question 7
Richard Flanagan · 2024
Beginning at a love hotel by Japan's Inland Sea and ending by a river in Tasmania, Question 7 is about the choices we make about love and the chain reaction that follows. By way of H. G. Wells and Rebecca West's affair through 1930s nuclear physics to Flanagan's father working as a slave labourer near Hiroshima when the atom bomb is dropped, this genre-defying daisy chain of events reaches fission when Flanagan as a young man finds himself trapped in a rapid on a wild river not knowing if he is to live or to die. At once a love song to his island home and to his parents, this hypnotic melding of dream, history, literature, place and memory is about how reality is never made by realists and how our lives so often arise out of the stories of others and the stories we invent about ourselves.
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64
Damned Whores and God's Police
Anne Summers · 2015
Sexual harassment, domestic violence and date rape had not been named, although they certainly existed, when Damned Whores and God's Police was first published in 1975. That was before the Sex Discrimination Act of 1984 and before large numbers of women became visible in employment, in politics and elsewhere across society. It's hard to imagine an Australia where these abuses were not yet fully understood as obstacles to women's equality, yet that was Australia in 1975. It was in this climate that Anne Summers identified 'damned whores' and 'God's police', the stereotypes that characterised all women as being either virtuous mothers whose function was to civilise society or bad girls who refused, or were unable, to conform to that norm and who were thus spurned and rejected by mainstream Australia. These stereotypes persist to this day, argues Anne Summers in this updated version of her classic book which, in the 40 years since it was first published, has sold well over 100,000 copies and been set on countless school and university syllabuses. Who are today's damned whores? And why do women themselves still want to be God's Police? And although sexual harassment, domestic violence and date rape are well understood today they are nevertheless still with us and seem to be increasing. The fight is far from over.
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65
Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens
Shankari Chandran · 2022
Welcome to Cinnamon Gardens, a home for those who are lost and the stories they treasure. Cinnamon Gardens Nursing Home is nestled in the quiet suburb of Westgrove, Sydney gdash; populated with residents with colourful histories, each with their own secrets, triumphs and failings. This is their safe place, an oasis of familiar delights wdash; a beautiful garden, a busy kitchen and a bountiful recreation schedule. But this ordinary neighbourhood is not without its prejudices. The serenity of Cinnamon Gardens is threatened by malignant forces more interested in what makes this refuge different rather than embracing the calm companionship that makes this place home to so many. As those who challenge the residents squo; existence make their stand against the nursing home with devastating consequences, our characters are forced to reckon with a country divided. Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens is about family and memory, community and race, but is ultimately a love letter to storytelling and how our stories shape who we are.
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66
Carpentaria
Alexis Wright · 2006
Alexis Wright is one of Australia's finest Aboriginal writers. CARPENTARIA is her second novel, an epic set in the Gulf country of north-western Queensland, from where her people come. The novel's portrait of life in the precariously settled coastal town of Desperance centres on the powerful Phantom family, leader of the Westend Pricklebush people, and its battles with old Joseph Midnight's renegade Eastend mob on the one hand, and the white officials of Uptown and the neighbouring Gurfurrit mine on the other. Wright's storytelling is operatic and surreal: a blend of myth and scripture, farce and politics. The novel teems with extraordinary characters - Elias Smith the outcast saviour, the religious zealot Mozzie Fishman, the murderous mayor Stan Bruiser, the moth-ridden Captain Nicoli Finn, the activist and prodigal son Will Phantom, and above all, the queen of the rubbish-dump Angel Day and her sea-faring husband Normal Phantom, the fish-embalming king of time - figures that stride like giants across this storm-swept world.
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67
Voss
Patrick White · 1957
Set in nineteenth-century Australia, Voss is the story of the secret passion between an explorer and a naive young woman. Although they have met only a few times, Voss and Laura are joined by overwhelming, obsessive feelings for each other. Voss sets out to cross the continent, and as hardships, mutiny and betrayal whittle away his power to endure and to lead, his attachment to Laura gradually increases. Laura, waiting in Sydney, moves through the months of separation as if they were a dream and Voss the only reality.
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68
Unreliable Memoirs
Clive James · 1981
'I was born in 1939. The other big event of that year was the outbreak of the Second World War, but for the moment, that did not affect me.' In the first instalment of Clive James's memoirs, we meet the young Clive, dressed in short trousers, and wrestling with the demands of school, various relatives and the occasional snake, in the suburbs of post-war Sydney. 'Vivid, cumulative and full of surprises' Observer 'Do not read this book in public. You will risk severe internal injuries from trying to suppress your laughter. What's worse, you can't put it down once started. Its addictive powers stun all normal, decent resistance within seconds. Not to be missed' Sunday Times 'Enormously funny . . . Buy it' Cosmopolitan
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69
A Town Like Alice
Nevil Shute · 2001
'We used to sit by the river and watch the sun setting behind the mountains, sometimes, and say what a marvellous place it would be to come for a holiday' WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ERIC LOMAX Jean Paget is just twenty years old and working in Malaya when the Japanese invasion begins. When she is captured she joins a group of other women and children whom the Japanese force to walk for miles through the jungle leading to the deaths of many. Due to her courageous spirit, Jean takes on the role of leader of the sorry gaggle of prisoners. While on the march, the group run into an Australian prisoner, Joe Harman, who helps them steal some food, and is horrifically punished as a result. Jean's adventures, and her bond with Joe, form the heart of this gripping and moving story.
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70
Diary of a Wombat
Jackie French · 2002
This diary reveals the hectic schedule of a wombat's life. Our heroine has a lot of sleeping and eating to fit into the hours of the day, with food supply a constant concern. There are always new holes to be dug and when her territory is invaded she must defend it at all costs
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71
The Tree Of Man
Patrick White · 1955
Stan Parker, with only a horse and a dog for company journeys to a remote patch of land he has inherited in the Australian hills. Once the land is cleared and a rudimentary house built, he brings his wife Amy to the wilderness. Together they face lives of joy and sorrow as they struggle against the environment.
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72
This House of Grief: The Story of a Murder Trial
Helen Garner · 2014
Anyone can see the place where the children died. You take the Princes Highway past Geelong, and keep going west in the direction of Colac. Late in August 2006, soon after I had watched a magistrate commit Robert Farquharson to stand trial before a jury on three charges of murder, I headed out that way on a Sunday morning, across the great volcanic plain.
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73
Scrublands
Chris Hammer · 2018
Winner of the 2019 CWA Dagger New Blood Award for Best First Crime NovelIn an isolated country town brought to its knees by endless drought, a charismatic and dedicated young priest calmly opens fire on his congregation, killing five parishioners before being shot dead himself. A year later, troubled journalist Martin Scarsden arrives in Riversend to write a feature on the anniversary of the tragedy. But the stories he hears from the locals about the priest and incidents leading up to the shooting don't fit with the accepted version of events his own newspaper reported in an award-winning investigation. Martin can't ignore his doubts, nor the urgings of some locals to unearth the real reason behind the priest's deadly rampage.Just as Martin believes he is making headway, a shocking new development rocks the town, which becomes the biggest story in Australia. The media descends on Riversend and Martin is now the one in the spotlight. His reasons for investigating the shooting have suddenly become very personal. Wrestling with his own demons, Martin finds himself risking everything to discover a truth that becomes darker and more complex with every twist. But there are powerful forces determined to stop him, and he has no idea how far they will go to make sure the town's secrets stay buried.A compulsive thriller that will haunt you long after you have turned the final page.
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74
The Fatal Shore
Robert Hughes · 1987
An award-winning epic on the birth of AustraliaIn 1787, the twenty-eighth year of the reign of King George III, the British Government sent a fleet to colonise Australia.Documenting the brutal transportation of men, women and children out of Georgian Britain into a horrific penal system which was to be the precursor to the Gulag and was the origin of Australia, The Fatal Shore is the definitive, masterfully written narrative that has given its true history to Australia.'A unique phantasmagoria of crime and punishment, which combines the shadowy terrors of Goya with the tumescent life of Dickens' Times
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75
The Bookbinder of Jericho
Pip Williams · 2022
What is lost when knowledge is withheld? In 1914, when the war draws the young men of Britain away to fight, it is the women who must keep the nation running. Two of those women are Peggy and Maude, twin sisters who work in the bindery at Oxford University Press in Jericho. Peggy is intelligent, ambitious and dreams of going to Oxford University, but for most of her life she has been told her job is to bind the books, not read them. Maude, meanwhile, wants nothing more than what she has. She is extraordinary but vulnerable. Peggy needs to watch over her. When refugees arrive from the devastated cities of Belgium, it sends ripples through the community and through the sisters' lives. Peggy begins to see the possibility of another future where she can use her intellect and not just her hands, but as war and illness reshape her world, it is love, and the responsibility that comes with it, that threaten to hold her back. In this beautiful companion to the international bestseller The Dictionary of Lost Words, Pip Williams explores another little-known slice of history seen through women's eyes. Evocative, subversive and rich with unforgettable characters, The Bookbinder of Jericho is a story about knowledge who gets to make it, who gets to access it, and what is lost when it is withheld.
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76
The Natural Way of Things
Charlotte Wood · 2015
Winner of the 2016 Stella Prize She hears her own thick voice deep inside her ears when she says, 'I need to know where I am.' The man stands there, tall and narrow, hand still on the doorknob, surprised. He says, almost in sympathy, 'Oh, sweetie. You need to know what you are.' Two women awaken from a drugged sleep to find themselves imprisoned in a broken-down property in the middle of nowhere. Strangers to each other, they have no idea where they are or how they came to be there with eight other girls, forced to wear strange uniforms, their heads shaved, guarded by two inept yet vicious armed jailers and a 'nurse'. The girls all have something in common, but what is it? What crime has brought them here from the city? Who is the mysterious security company responsible for this desolate place with its brutal rules, its total isolation from the contemporary world? Doing hard labour under a sweltering sun, the prisoners soon learn what links them: in each girl's past is a sexual scandal with a powerful man. They pray for rescue -- but when the food starts running out it becomes clear that the jailers have also become the jailed. The girls can only rescue themselves. The Natural Way of Things is a gripping, starkly imaginative exploration of contemporary misogyny and corporate control, and of what it means to hunt and be hunted. Most of all, it is the story of two friends, their sisterly love and courage. With extraordinary echoes of The Handmaid's Tale and Lord of the Flies, The Natural Way of Things is a compulsively readable, scarifying and deeply moving contemporary novel. It confirms Charlotte Wood's position as one of our most thoughtful, provocative and fearless truth-tellers, as she unflinchingly reveals us and our world to ourselves. 'As a man, to read it is as unsettling as receiving one piece of bad news after another. It is confronting. Yet anyone who reads it, man or woman, is going to be left with a sense that a long-hidden truth has been revealed to them. The Natural Way of Things is a brave, brilliant book. I would defy anyone to read it and not come out a changed person.' Malcolm Knox, author of The Wonder Lover 'This is a stunning exploration of ambiguities - of power, of morality, of judgment. With a fearless clarity, Wood's elegantly spare and brutal prose dissects humanity, hatreds, our ambivalent capacities for friendship and betrayal, and the powerful appearance - always - of moments of grace and great beauty. The book's ending undid me through the shape of the world it reveals as much as its revisions of escape and survival. It will not leave you easily; it took my breath away.' Ashley Hay, author of The Railwayman's Wife
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77
The Broken Shore
Peter Temple · 2005
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING, CWA GOLD DAGGER-WINNING AND NED KELLY AWARD-RECEIVING CRIME POWERHOUSE: read The Broken Shore and become hooked on Peter Temple.'A masterpiece' John Lanchester'Read page one and I challenge you not to finish it' Independent on SundayHaunted by his last case, homicide detective Joe Cashin has fled Melbourne and returned to his hometown, running its one-man police station while his wounds heal and his nightmares fade.But when a local man is attacked and left for dead, Cashin's recovery is put on hold. And in a small town where everyone knows everyone, he finds himself standing alone fighting a battle against corruption and prejudice.Loved The Broken Shore? Then move straight to its award-winning sequel, Truth: 'The Broken Shore was good; Truth is better' Independent
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78
Power Without Glory
Frank Hardy · 1962
In the history of Australian literature few books have been so controversial than Frank Hardy's Power Without Glory.This is a tale of corruption stretching from street corner SP bookmaking to the most influential men in the land - and the terrible personal cost of the power such corruption brings.John West rose from a Melbourne slum to dominate Australian politics with bribery, brutality and fear. His attractive wife and their children turned away from him in horror. Friends dropped away. At the peak of his power, surrounded by bootlickers, West faced a hate-filled nation - and the terrible loneliness of his life.Was John West a real figure? For months during the post-war years, an Australian court heard evidence in a sensational libel action brought by businessman John Wren's wife. After a national uproar which rocked the very foundations of the Commonwealth, Frank Hardy was acquitted.This is the novel which provoked such intense uproar and debate across the nation. The questions it poses remain unanswered...Here are a few of the many and varied reactions it's received over the past 50 years:'"This is the foulest libel that was ever written' Mr Galbally, Counsel for the Prosecution against Frank Hardy as quoted by DAILY TELEGRAPH 1950'We have been consulted by Mr and Mrs John Wren and members of their family, and we note that you are selling copies of the book Power Without Glory by Frank Hardy. 'The book is grossly libelous of our clients. 'At this stage we hereby give you notice that our clients will be exercising their legal rights, and to warn you of the consequences of the sale of this book.'LETTER TO MELBOURNE BOOKSELLERS FROM CORR AND CORR SOLICITORS 1951'We will continue selling it'BOOKSELLER REACTION 1951'Lies, lies, lies'JOHN FRANCIS WREN JNR 1951'More than 100 of Australia's best known writers, artists, scientists and members of the professions are petitioning the Victorian Attorney-General for the withdrawl of the case against Power Without Glory author Frank Hardy (in) defence of Australian traditions'DAILY TELEGRAPH 1951'[witnesses in the case against Hardy] today identified distinguished Australians with the characters in the book: Among them were: Field Marshall Sir Thomas Blamey (Blaire in the book); James Scullin, a former Prime Minister (Jim Somers); Sir High Devine, eminent surgeon (Dr Devlin); Archbishop Carr (Archbishop Conn); T.J.Ryan, a former Premier of Queensland (T.J.Real); Mr W.P.C.Kennelly, M.L.C. Federal Secretary for the ALP (Teddy Kelleher); and Mr W Barry, MLA, former State Labor Minister for Housing (Bill Brady).'DAILY TELEGRAPH 1951'It's Communist propaganda'Bernard Nolan, witness for the prosecution, solicitor and friend of the Wren family, DAILY TELEGRAPH 1951'"It was published with intent to cause a breach of the peace," Mr Galbally [counsel for the prosecution] said... "This charge of criminal libel is a rare one - it happens only once every 500 years when you get a case as bad as this one..."SYDNEY MORNING HERALD 1951'I would like to be locked up with the author for 10 minutes. There wouldn't be a man here today answering this charge...I would probably have kicked Hardy to piecesBernard Nolan DAILY TELEGRAPH 1951'Any novel which more than a handful of people remember as much as a year or so after its first publication is a rarity. Yet after ten years hundreds of thousands of Australians still remember Power Without Glory.'THE AGE, 1960'A truly epic work, both in conception and execution...Power Without Glory gives us a picture both of a whole Australian epoch and of a man. It has coherence and unflagging interest, not merely because of the vitality of the incidents, but because West is realised as an individual, caught up in circumstances, fighting to shape them his own way, succeeding and yet defeated. He is depicted as a ruthless man, corrupted and corrupting; and yet we feel sympathy for him...Power Without Glory has a secure place in the pol
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79
Johnno
David Malouf · 1978
Dante and Johnno are unlikely childhood friends, growing up in the bustle of steamy, wartime Brisbane. Later, as teenagers, they learn about love and life amidst the city's pubs and public libraries, backyards and brothels, Moreton Bay figs and tennis parties. As adults, they make the great pilgrimage overseas and maintain an uneasy friendship as they seek to build their lives.An affectionate and bittersweet portrait, Johnno brilliantly recreates the sleazy, tropical half-city that was Brisbane and captures a generation locked in combat with the elusive Australian dream.
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80
For the Term of His Natural Life
Marcus Clarke · 1952
Scarcely out of print since the early 1870s, For the Term of His Natural Life has provided successive generations with a vivid account of a brutal phase of colonial life. The main focus of this great convict novel is the complex interaction between those in power and those who suffer, made meaningful because of its hero's struggle against his wrongful imprisonment. Elements of romance, incidents of family life and passages of scenic description both relieve and give emphasis to the tragedy that forms its heart.
from $15.00 9 shopsCompare prices -
81
We of the Never-Never
Jeannie Gunn · 2004
To begin somewhere near the beginning, the Maluka—better known at that time as the new Boss for the Elsey—and I, his "missus," were at Darwin, in the Northern Territory, waiting for the train that was to take us just as far as it could—one hundred and fifty miles—on our way to the Never-Never. It was out of town just then, up-country somewhere, billabonging in true bush-whacker style, but was expected to return in a day or two, when it would be at our service. Jack, the Quiet Stockman, was out at the homestead, "seeing to things" there. The Sanguine Scot, the Head Stockman, and the Dandy, were in at the Katherine, marking time, as it were, awaiting instructions by wire from the Maluka, while some of the Company "put finishing touches" to their New Year celebrations. And every one, with, of course, the exception of those in Darwin, was blissfully unconscious of even the existence of the Maluka's missus. Knowing the Maluka by repute, however, every one was agreed that the "Elsey had struck it lucky," until the telegraph wire, whispering the gossip of Darwin to the Katherine, whispered that the "new Boss for the Elsey had been and gone and married a missus just before leaving the South, and was bringing her along with him." Then the Sanguine Scot was filled with wrath, the Company with compassion, while the Dandy's consternation found relief in a dismayed "Heavens above!" (The Dandy, by the way, was only a dandy in his love of sweet, clean clothes and orderly surroundings. The heart of the man had not a touch of dandyism in it.) The Head Stockman was absent in his camp. Had he been present, much might have been said on the "advantages of having a woman about the place." The Wag, however, retained his usual flow of speech and spirits.
from $40.53 3 shopsCompare prices -
82
Eucalyptus
Murray Bail · 1995
In a touching modern fairy tale, a farmer in Australia's New South Wales announces that his daughter may only wed the man who can correctly name the species of each and every eucalyptus tree on his property, a decision that is complicated when Ellen chances upon a mysterious young man. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.
from $23.39 7 shopsCompare prices -
83
Wombat Stew
Marcia K. Vaughan · 1985
In this classic Australian picture book, a dingo catches a wombat and wants to cook him in a stew. But all the other bush animals have a plan to save their friend. They trick the dingo into using mud, feathers, flies, bugs and gumnuts in his wombat stew, and the result is-a stew the dingo will never forget!
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84
Shantaram
Gregory David Roberts · 2003
Gregory David Roberts is now a full-time writer, film producer, and international public speaker. In Bombay he has established a charitable trust to care for the poorest of the poor slum-dwellers. He divides his time between Geneva and Bombay.
from $33.32 7 shopsCompare prices -
85
The Dressmaker
Rosalie Ham · 2000
Reissued with a new cover to coincide with the release of Summer at Mount Hope. After twenty years away, Myrtle "Tilly" Dunnage returns to Dungatar. Dungatar is a small country town, where the townspeople's eccentricities are many and varied – from Sergeant Farrat's predilection for cross-dressing, to pharmacist Almanac's retributive scheme of potion dispensing, not to forget the affairs and assorted dark secrets. But none of these can compare to the sin of Tilly and her mother: to have come from somewhere else. At first ostracised, the townspeople gradually accept her in order to make use of her extraordinary dressmaking skills and at last, Tilly feels that she might have found home. But small towns are strange places, where vanity rules and, once again reviled, she sets out to teach the town a lesson. In the process she faces the ghosts of her past, and wreaks a havoc that provides a most satisfying revenge.** STOCK TITLE/FIRM SALE/AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER**
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86
The Lost Man
Jane Harper · 2018
Three brothers, one death, a fenceline stretching to the horizon. Two brothers meet at the border of their vast cattle properties under the unrelenting sun of outback Queensland. They are at the stockman's grave, a landmark so old, no one can remember who is buried there. But today, the scant shadow it casts was the last hope for their middle brother, Cameron. The Bright family's quiet existence is thrown into grief and anguish. Something had been troubling Cam. Did he lose hope and walk to his death? Because if he didn't, the isolation of the outback leaves few suspects... For readers who loved The Dry and Force of Nature, Jane Harper has once again created a powerful story of suspense, set against a dazzling landscape.
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87
The Trauma Cleaner
Sarah Krasnostein · 2017
Before she was a trauma cleaner, Sandra Pankhurst was many things- husband and father, drag queen, gender reassignment patient, sex worker, small businesswoman, trophy wifea But as a little boy, raised in violence and excluded from the family home, she just wanted to belong. Now she believes her clients deserve no less. A woman who sleeps among garbage she has not put out for forty years. A man who bled quietly to death in his loungeroom. A woman who lives with rats, random debris and terrified delusion. The still life of a home vacated by accidental overdose. Sarah Krasnostein has watched the extraordinary Sandra Pankhurst bring order and care to these, the living and the dead - and the book she has written is equally extraordinary. Not just the compelling story of a fascinating life among lives of desperation, but an affirmation that, as isolated as we may feel, we are all in this together.
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88
Juice
Tim Winton · 2024
An epic novel of determination, survival, and the limits of the human spirit. This is Tim Winton as you've never read him before. Two fugitives, a man and a child, drive all night across a stony desert. As dawn breaks, they roll into an abandoned mine site. From the vehicle they survey a forsaken place - middens of twisted iron, rusty wire, piles of sun-baked trash. They're exhausted, traumatised, desperate now. But as a refuge, this is the most promising place they've seen. The child peers at the field of desolation. The man thinks to himself, this could work. Problem is, they're not alone. So begins a searing, propulsive journey through a life whose central challenge is not simply a matter of survival, but of how to maintain human decency as everyone around you falls ever further into barbarism.
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89
Edenglassie
Melissa Lucashenko · 2023
Two extraordinary Indigenous stories set five generations apart. When Mulanyin meets the beautiful Nita in Edenglassie, their saltwater people still outnumber the British. As colonial unrest peaks, Mulanyin dreams of taking his bride home to Yugambeh Country, but his plans for independence collide with white justice. Two centuries later, fiery activist Winona meets Dr Johnny. Together they care for obstinate centenarian Grannie Eddie, and sparks fly, but not always in the right direction. What nobody knows is how far the legacies of the past will reach into their modern lives. In this brilliant epic, Melissa Lucashenko torches Queensland' s colonial myths, while reimagining an Australian future.
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90
Puberty Blues
Kathy Lette · 2002
I don't recall reading Puberty Blues so much as devouring it. I was about thirteen, alone in my bedroom with the door firmly shut. I was fascinated. Kylie Minogue A revolutionary and timeless book. 'By day, we were at school learning logarithms, but by night - in the back of cars, under the bowling alley, on Cronulla Beach, or, if you were lucky, in a bed while someone's parents were out - you paid off your friendship ring.' For Deb and Sue, life is about surfies, panel vans, straight-leg Levis, nicking off from school, getting wasted, friendships and fitting in. But why should guys have all the fun? When Deb and Sue decide to take to the waves on boards, a whole culture is upturned. Puberty Blues is raw, humorous and painfully honest. An Australian classic that has been reimagined in film and on TV and shocking, exercising, empowering and entertaining readers for more than four decades.
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91
Where the forest meets the sea
Jeannie Baker · 1987
My father says there has been a forest here for over a hundred million years," Jeannie Baker's young protagonist tells us, and we follow him on a visit to this tropical rain forest in North Queensland, Australia. We walk with him among the ancient trees as he pretends it is a time long ago, when extinct and rare animals lived in the forest and aboriginal children played there. But for how much longer will the forest still be there, he wonders? Jeannie Baker's lifelike collage illustrations take the reader on an extraordinary visual journey to an exotic, primeval wilderness, which like so many others is now being threatened by civilization.
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92
The Tall Man
Chloe Hooper · 2008
The story of a death, a policeman, an island and a country. The Tall Man is the story of Palm Island, the tropical paradise where one morning Cameron Doomadgee swore at a policeman and forty minutes later lay dead in a watch-house cell. It is the story of that policeman, the tall, enigmatic Christopher Hurley who chose to work in some of the toughest and wildest places in Australia, and of the struggle to bring him to trial. Above all, it is a story in luminous detail of two worlds clashing – and a haunting moral puzzle that no reader will forget.Selected for 'Best books of the year' lists by Ali Smith, Colm Tóibín, Matt Condon, Peter Carey, Salon.com, The Globe & Mail and Dwight Garner in The New York Times. 'The country's finest work of literature so far this century. A haunting moral maze, described with such intimate observation and exquisite restraint that I kept pausing to take a breath and silently cheer the author ... [I]n her tale of the fatal collision between two 36-year-old males, black Cameron Doomadgee and white Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley, Hooper ... has produced an Australian classic.' Robert Drewe, The Age 'Hooper followed the case and its main characters for two and a half years, and she does their complexity a remarkable justice ... Extraordinary.' Alison McCulloch, New York Times Book Review 'A gripping, heart-stopping piece of true-crime reportage ... Deserves the widest possible audience.' Brian Schofield, Sunday Times (UK)
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93
The Man Who Loved Children
Christina Stead · 1966
The Man Who Loved Children, an acclaimed twentieth-century classic, is an unforgettable portrait of a magnificently dysfunctional family. The Pollits--Sam and Henny and their swarming household of children and animals--inhabit an America wracked by the Great Depression, but are even more deeply embedded in a world of their own making. This is an intense, suffocating, theatrical, all-encompassing world, poor in material goods but rich in emotion and language. Manipulative, hyperbolic cheer from the haplessly egotistical father is matched by floods of exuberantly venomous invective from his infuriated wife, while Louie, the mistreated, love-hungry little girl at the heart of the story, is precocious and tenacious in equal measure, an ugly duckling we find ourselves fiercely rooting for. Everything about the Pollits--their excesses of energy and indulgence, their closeness, their bitterness, their emotional fireworks--is extreme, but the paradoxical marvel of Christina Stead's masterpiece stems from its power to convey out of such extremes an utterly convincing depiction of the central relationships of human experience. (Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed)
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94
The Spare Room
Helen Garner · 2000
Helen has little idea what lies ahead when she offers her spare room to an old friend of fifteen years. Nicola has arrived in the city for treatment for cancer. Sceptical of the medical establishment, placing all her faith in an alternative health centre, Nicola is determined to find her own way to deal with her illness, regardless of the advice that Helen can offer. In the weeks that follow, Nicola's battle against her cancer will turn not only her own life upside down but also those of everyone around her. The Spare Room is a magical gem of a book that packs a huge punch, charting a friendship as it is tested by the threat of death.
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95
The Museum of Modern Love
Heather Rose · 2016
'If this was a dream, then he wanted to know when it would end. Maybe it would end if he went to see Lydia. But it was the one thing he was not allowed to do.'..Arky Swann is a film composer in New York separated from his wife, who has made him promise to keep a terrible secret. One day he finds his way to The Atrium at MOMA and sees Marina Abramovic in her performance The Artist is Present. The performance continues for seventy-five days and, as it unfolds, so does Arky as he considers marriage, art and the nature of commitment and love over a long-term union. The Museum of Modern Love is the story of one of the world's greatest art events and a man in search of connection.
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96
Recipetin Eats: Dinner
Nagi Maehashi · 2022
150 dinner recipes. Fail-proof. Delicious. Addictive. The food you want to cook, eat and share, night after night. Through her phenomenally popular online food site, RecipeTin Eats, Nagi Maehashi talks to millions of people a year who tell her about the food they love. Now, in her first cookbook, Nagi brings us the ultimate curation of new and favourite RecipeTin Eats recipes - from comfort food (yes, cheese galore), to fast and easy food for weeknights, Mexican favourites, hearty dinner salads, Asian soups and noodles, and special treats for festive occasions. Featuring a photo and how-to video for every recipe (follow the QR code), readily available ingredients, Nagi's famously helpful notes, and Dozer, Australia's best-loved food tester, this is a kitchen-shelf must have for the novice cook, the expert seeking to perfect technique (straight to the Beef Wellington!), and everyone in between.
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97
Devotion
Hannah Kent · 2021
Prussia, 1836 Hanne Nussbaum is a child of nature - she would rather run wild in the forest than conform to the limitations of womanhood. In her village of Kay, Hanne is friendless and considered an oddity...until she meets Thea. Ocean, 1838 The Nussbaums are Old Lutherans, bound by God's law and at odds with their King's order for reform. Forced to flee religious persecution the families of Kay board a crowded, disease-riddled ship bound for the new colony of South Australia. In the face of brutal hardship, the beauty of whale song enters Hanne's heart, along with the miracle of her love for Thea. Theirs is a bond that nothing can break. The whale passed. The music faded. South Australia, 1838 A new start in an old land. God, society and nature itself decree Hanne and Thea cannot be together. But within the impossible...is devotion. This long-awaited novel demonstrates Hannah Kent's sublime ability with language that creates an immersive, transformative experience for the reader. Devotion is a book to savour. Praise for Devotion: 'Devotion is utterly original. A glorious, heartbreaking love story of infinite beauty.' - Heather Rose 'Hannah Kent's latest novel is stunning - full of magic and adventure. I fell in love with language again reading it. So beautiful and so raw. Devotion is impossibly good.' - Evie Wyld 'Such a glorious love story. And the poetry of the landscape had, for me, a Whitmanesque sensibility. A mighty impassioned cry to love and the land.' - Sarah Winman 'Devotion is rare and exquisite, both beautiful and muscular in its portrayal of love found and denied. It's a story of love as a radical act, and a celebration of place and persistence. As we've come to expect from Kent, this is masterful storytelling with pull-no-punches stakes. It's taken root in my heart.' - Kiran Millwood Hargrave
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98
The Arrival
Shaun Tan · 2006
Haunting, original and told entirely through exquisitely imagined black, white and sepia pictures, THE ARRIVAL is the story of one man's encounter with life in a strange new world. It's a timeless, universal story that will resonate with anyone, anywhere who has struggled to start again in a place that is different to the one they have always known. Much loved around the world, THE ARRIVAL has also won numerous awards including the CBCA Book of the Year and 'Best Album' at the Augouleme Festival in France.
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99
The 13-Storey Treehouse
Andy and Denton, Terry Griffiths · 2011
Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton are a creative partnership that began with 'Just Tricking!' in 1997 and now extends to eight "Just" books and more than a million copies sold, the ground-breaking 'The Bad Book', the off-the-wall success of 'The Cat on the Mat is Flat', the "Bum" trilogy (which made the "New York Times" bestseller list), the bestselling 'The Very Bad Book' and now the treehouse series. Andy and Terry have won numerous kids choice awards and many of their titles are nominated every year. In 2012, 'The 13-Storey Treehouse' won the ABIA award for older readers.
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100
Round the Twist
Paul Jennings · 1990
First of a planned series of graphic-novel (ie, cartoon-book) versions of short stories adapted from episodes of the television series for children and teenagers, TRound the Twist'. TPink Bow' concerns a machine that changes one's age with grisly and comic results, while in TNails' a girl falls in love with a fellow student who turns out to be a merman. These versions, and the TV scripts, are adapted from Jennings' original short stories.
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