12 Best Australian Books to Read

Australian authors have produced some incredible books over more than a hundred years, including well-known classics that are household names, all the way through to contemporary masterpieces. Enjoy 12 Best Australian Books to Read.

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12 Best Australian Books to Read

Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton

Australia, 1983

Life is pretty tough right now for twelve-year-old Eli – what with his mute brother, a convicted murderer for a babysitter, a drug-dealing stepfather, an incarcerated mother and a long-lost father – surely it can’t get any worse?

Think again. He’s about to fall in love, break into prison and cross paths with one of the most notorious criminals Brisbane has ever seen.

A coming-of-age story like no other, Boy Swallows Universe is the most exhilarating novel you’ll read all year.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan

Forever after, there were for them only two sorts of men: the men who were on the Line, and the rest of humanity, who were not. In the despair of a Japanese POW camp on the Burma Death Railway, surgeon Dorrigo Evans is haunted by his love affair with his uncle’s young wife two years earlier

Struggling to save the men under his command from starvation, from cholera, from beatings, he receives a letter that will change his life forever. This is a story about the many forms of love and death, of war and truth, as one man comes of age, prospers, only to discover all that he has lost.

We Come With This Place by Debra Dank

We Come with This Place is a remarkable book, as rich, varied and surprising as the vast landscape in which it is set. Debra Dank has created an extraordinary mosaic of vivid episodes that move about in time and place to tell an unforgettable story of country and people.

Debra Dank has written a deeply personal, a profound tribute to family and the Gudanji Country in Australia, to which Debra Dank belongs, but it is much more than that. Here is Australia as it has been for countless generations, land and people in effortless balance, and Australia as it became, but also Australia as it could and should be.

The Book Thief by Marcus Zuzak

It is 1939. In Nazi Germany, the country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier – and will become busier still.

By her brother’s graveside, nine year old Liesel’s life is changed forever when she picks up a single object, abandoned in the snow. It is The Gravedigger’s Handbook, and this is her first act of book thievery.

So begins Liesel’s love affair with books and words, and soon she is stealing from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor’s wife’s library . . . wherever there are books to be found. But these are dangerous times, and when Liesel’s foster family hides a Jew in their basement, nothing will ever be the same again.

This House of Grief by Helen Garner

Father’s Day, 2005. Just after nightfall, a discarded husband drove his three young sons back to their mother, his ex-wife.

On that dark country road, barely five minutes from the children’s home, the old white car swerved off the highway and plunged into a dam. The father freed himself and swam to the bank, but the car sank to the bottom, and all the children drowned.

The court case that followed became Helen Garner’s obsession, one that would take over her life until its final verdict. The resulting book is a true-crime classic and literary masterpiece, which examines just what we are capable of and how fiercely we hide it from ourselves.

True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey

‘I lost my own father at 12 yr. of age and know what it is to be raised on lies and silence…’

To the authorities in pursuit of him, outlaw Ned Kelly is a horse thief, bank robber and police-killer. But to his fellow ordinary Australians, Kelly is their own Robin Hood. In a dazzling act of ventriloquism, Peter Carey brings the famous bushranger wildly and passionately to life.

Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville

Dolly Maunder is born at the end of the nineteenth century, when society’s long-locked doors are just starting to creak ajar for determined women. Growing up in a poor farming family in rural New South Wales, Dolly spends her life doggedly pushing at those doors. A husband and two children do not deter her from searching for love and independence.

Restless Dolly Maunder is a subversive, triumphant tale of a pioneering woman working her way through a world of limits and obstacles, who is able – despite the cost – to make a life she could call her own.

The Shepherd’s Hut by Tim Winton

For years Jaxie Clackton has dreaded going home. His beloved mum is dead, and he wishes his dad was too, until one terrible moment leaves his life stripped to nothing. No one ever told Jaxie Clackton to be careful what he wishes for.

And so Jaxie runs. There’s just one person in the world who understands him, but to reach her he’ll have to cross the vast saltlands of Western Australia. It is a place that harbours criminals and threatens to kill those who haven’t reckoned with its hot, waterless vastness. This is a journey only a dreamer – or a fugitive – would attempt.

The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough

The Thorn Birds is the towering saga of three generations of a remarkable family in the rugged Australian Outback. The triumphs and tragedies, the dramas and disappointments, the passions and the pain of the Cleary family and those who came into their lives became an instant bestseller when it was first published in 1977. The basis of one of the most acclaimed television miniseries of all time, the novel remains an internationally beloved favorite.

Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally

Disturbing, harrowing and yet also deeply inspiring in its depiction of humanity and moral action, Schindler’s List holds a special place in the twentieth-century literary canon. The winner of 1982’s Booker Prize endures as a compassionate and thoughtful account of heroism in the face of a barbaric regime and its horrifying ‘final solution.’

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.

A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute

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 European women and children whom the Japanese force to march for miles through the jungle – an experience that leads to the deaths of many.

While on the march, the group run into some Australian prisoners, one of whom, Joe Harman, helps them steal some food, and is horrifically punished by the Japanese as a result.

After the war, Jean tracks Joe down in Australia and together they begin to dream of surmounting the past and transforming his one-horse outback town into a thriving community like Alice Springs…

Horse by Geraldine Brooks

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. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union.

On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamour of any racetrack.

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.

If you enjoyed our selection of the 12 Best Australian Books to Read, check out 20 Best British Books of the 20th Century