11 Text Titles Featured in Top 100 Australian Books Countdown

The Secret River Kate Grenville

#9

Inspired by research into her own family history, Kate Grenville vividly creates the reality of settler life, its longings, dangers and dilemmas. The Secret River is a brilliantly written book, a groundbreaking story about identity, belonging and ownership.

My Brilliant Career: Text Classics Miles Franklin

#18

Written with all the high spirits of youth, My Brilliant Career is the unforgettable tale of Sybylla Melvin, a headstrong country girl—passionate, endearing, stubborn, honest—and her fraught journey from rags to riches to rags.

Picnic at Hanging Rock Joan Lindsay

#26

On a cloudless summer day in 1900, a group from Appleyard College for Young Ladies goes for a picnic. In the heat of the afternoon sun, three girls climb through the scrub—and disappear.

Monkey Grip Helen Garner

#31

Helen Garner’s gritty, lyrical first novel divided the critics on its publication in 1977. Today, Monkey Grip is regarded as a masterpiece—the novel that shines a light on a time and a place and a way of living never before presented in Australian literature: communal households, music, friendships, children, love, drugs, and sex.

The Rosie Project Graeme Simsion

#34

Don Tillman is getting married. He just doesn't know who to yet. But he has designed the Wife Project, using a sixteen-page questionnaire to help him find the perfect partner. She will most definitely not be a barmaid, a smoker, a drinker, or a late-arriver...

Limberlost Robbie Arnott

#36

The 2023 Age Book of the Year from the twice Miles Franklin Award-shortlisted author, Limberlost is a story of family and land, loss and hope, fate and the unknown, and love and kindness.

This House of Grief: The Story of a Murder Trial Helen Garner

#72

In this utterly compelling book, Helen Garner tells the story of a man and his broken life. She presents the theatre of the courtroom with its actors and audience—all gathered to witness the truth—players in the extraordinary and unpredictable drama of the quest for justice.

The Broken Shore Peter Temple

#77

'With this moving portrait of a detective at a turning point in his life, one of our most accomplished crime writers gives us not only a gripping whodunnit but grapples with issues ranging from race relations, friendship, loyalty, politics, the past and the future to the bond between a man and his dog.' Age

Eucalyptus Murray Bail

#82

1999 Winner of the Miles Franklin Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize, Eucalyptus is a modern fairy tale and an unpredictable love story. Haunting and mesmeric, it illuminates the nature of story-telling itself.

The Trauma Cleaner Sarah Krasnostein

#87

Sarah Krasnostein has watched the extraordinary Sandra Pankhurst bring order and care to 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.

The Spare Room Helen Garner

#94

Helen prepares her spare room for her friend Nicola, who is flying down from Sydney for a three-week visit. But this is no ordinary visit—Nicola has advanced cancer. She is coming to Melbourne to receive treatment she believes will cure her.

From the moment Nicola steps off the plane, Helen becomes her nurse, her protector, her guardian angel and her stony judge.