List
ABC Radio National's Top 100 Australian Books (2026)
100 books Numbered Discoverable by Booko Admin
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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**
from £9.98 8 shopsCompare prices -
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.
from £9.99 7 shopsCompare prices -
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.
from £19.65 6 shopsCompare prices -
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.
from £14.43 6 shopsCompare prices -
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.
from £8.93 8 shopsCompare prices -
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)
from £12.12 4 shopsCompare prices -
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
from £12.79 6 shopsCompare prices -
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.
from £10.20 6 shopsCompare prices -
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.
from £9.15 8 shopsCompare prices
