This list of the best Australian books runs the spectrum from wacky history to institutionalized racism to ’80’s wastelands. It has thieves, hunky priests, imaginary schoolmates, POWs and gumshoes. It’s no wonder that there’s such a strong literary culture in Australia.
Melbourne itself is a UNESCO designated City of Literature. Australia hosts several major literary prizes, such as the Stella and the Miles Franklin awards. In addition, this collection of books set in Australia is littered with Booker prize winners and a Pulitzer.
Australia’s quality level of literature and nonfiction works is very high and curating a list of (only) 60 books was no small task. I could have stocked a healthy list simply from classic Australian literature. But as a recovering bookseller and someone who reads across genre, I wanted this list of Australian books to include modern edgy works as well as the classics.

“Nobody has the last word”, By Brenda Walker and inscribed into the reading room of the Melbourne City Library.
This article is long and while you could read all of these 60 Australian books, perhaps you have a job or some kids to take care of? If so, you can use this handy table of contents to skip to your preferred genres. Or just scroll the whole thing and find some delightful surprises.
(This article contains affiliate links. This means that if you choose to purchase, I’ll make a small commission.)
Table of Contents
Classic Australian Literature
Australian Novels: Family Dramas, Dark Relationships and Betrayal
Historical Fiction: Long Skirts, Convicts and Gold
Light Contemporary Fiction: Chick Lit and Dirty Doofy Dudes
Best Australian Books for Mystery & Crime Lovers
Speculative Books Set in Australia: Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Dystopia
Books Featuring Aboriginal Culture and History
Novels Set in the Australian Outback
Non-Fiction Australian History Books
Memoirs: Refugees, Outcasts and Racism
(This article contains affiliate links. This means that if you choose to purchase, I’ll make a small commission.)
Classic Australian Literature
No list of the best Australian books would be complete without exploring the country’s literary canon. These classic Australian books hold up and will give you a strong sense of Australia’s history and cultural anthropology.
The Fortunes of Richard Mahony, Henry Handel Richardson
While initially content with his wife Mary, Richard Mahony ultimately becomes restless. He goes from the gold fields in Ballarat, to the rest of Australia and abroad, shattering their security and ultimately plunging them into poverty. Richardson (who was a women, writing with a male nom de plume) captured Richard’s endless searching with “…the inevitability of a Greek tragedy”.
Seven Little Australians, Ethel Sybil Turner
Modern for its time, this children’s classic written in 1894, features a strict Army Captain, his second wife and their seven children. Captain Woolcot’s attempts at discipline fail completely and the kids run amok.
“None of the seven is really good, for the excellent reason that Australian children never are.”
Picnic at Hanging Rock, Joan Lindsay
“Everyone at Appleyard College for Young Ladies agreed it was just right for a picnic at Hanging Rock. After lunch, a group of three of the girls climbed into the blaze of the afternoon sun, pressing on through the scrub into the shadows of Hanging Rock. Further, higher, till at last they disappeared….” Mysterious and timeless.
The Harp in the South, Ruth Park
This Australian classic, captures the essence of Sydney’s hard life as lived by the Darcy family in the mid 1900’s. Despite their hardscrabble existence among the grog shops, brothels and boarding houses, they managed to find a lot of love amongst the mess and slum in Surry Hills.
Voss, Patrick White
“In 1973, Australian writer Patrick White was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature ‘for an epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a new continent into literature.’ Set in nineteenth-century Australia, Voss is White’s best-known book, a sweeping novel about a secret passion between the explorer Voss and the young orphan Laura.”
Australian Novels: Family Dramas, Dark Relationships and Coming of Age
Some of the best Australian novels feature families, but that doesn’t mean that they are happy or prosperous. These novels are stuffed full of difficult family relationships, hardship, addiction and coming of age (the hard way).
Cloudstreet, Tim Winton
This novel follows the religious, industrious Lamb family and the boozing fractious Pickleses family. “Hailed as a classic, Tim Winton’s masterful family saga is both a paean to working-class Australians and an unflinching examination of the human heart’s capacity for sorrow, joy, and endless gradations in between.”
“Life was something you didn’t argue with, because when it came down to it, whether you barracked for God or nothing at all, life was all there was. And death.” – Tim Windon, Cloudstreet
A Long Way from Home, Peter Carey
I’ve been slowly and steadily working my way through Carey’s canon, but there’s nothing slow or steady about this book. Irene Bobs, her husband Titch and their quiz-show failure of a neighbor Willy, take off on a madcap car race circumnavigating Australia. As they race around the continent, you get glimpses into the maddening nature of Irene and Titch’s marriage and witness Willy’s jump start into a new life. Carey propels you out the gate with his opening line:
“For a girl to defeat one father is a challenge, but there were two standing between me and what I wanted, which was—not to fiddle-faddle– a lovely little fellow named Titch Bobs.”, – Irene Bobs, A Long Way from Home
Too Much Lip, Melissa Lucashenko
Pop is dying and and Kerry is on the run with a stolen Harley. She reluctantly heads to the family homestead to hide out. Between her alcoholic brother, disapproving mother and reclusive nephew, it just might fall upon Kerry to hold the family together while a big secret threatens to explode all over them.
This book was the winner of the Miles Franklin award in 2019 and it’s a great choice if you are looking to double-dip your diverse reads as it features a queer, aboriginal main character.
The Place on Dalhousie, Melina Marchetta
Rosie Gennaro meets Jimmie after walking away from Sydney and the house her father built on Dalhousie. She returns to Dalhousie, pregnant and short on options to share the home with her reluctant step-mother. Other popular books by Marchetta include Saving Francesca (a precursor to Dalhousie) and Looking for Alibrandi (a coming of age tale).
Guilt is a burden. So forgive yourself for the mistakes” – Melina Marchetta
The Forgotten Garden, Kate Morton
“A tale that begins in England and travels across the many miles to Australia, comes home again to England to undo over a hundred years of secrets”. When Cassandra’s grandmother Nell dies, she inherits a book of dark and intriguing fairy tales and a mysterious family tale that sends her searching for her grandmother’s history.
The Sisters’ Song, Louise Allan
This book delivers a strong emotional pull as you follow Ida and Nora, two sisters living in Tasmania. When their father dies, they move in with their grandmother where Nora’s musical talent is encouraged and Ida takes on a career as a nanny. Their lives fork as they enter adulthood but they reconnect when Nora’s life and dreams have fallen into a heap.
A Light Between Oceans, M.L. Stedman
This book is an “… incredibly moving novel about what happens when good people make bad decisions. The story takes place in the town of Point Partageuse, Australia during the 1920s. The story begins when a lighthouse keeper and his wife find a life boat containing a live baby (and dead man) on the shore of their isolated island.
Through a mixture of misplaced intentions and unsupported superstition they decide to raise the child as their own — deciding not to inform the authorities of the child’s existence”.
And that decision has some very tragic consequences.
The Slap, Christos Tsiolkas
You probably aren’t going to like the characters in The Slap, but Tsiolkas’ take on how we fail to see our own petty and cruel natures will definitely give you food for thought. One slap at a suburban barbecue sets off a sequence of tense events, presented by the author with an unflinching eye.
A Fraction of the Whole, Steve Tolz
Along a similar vein as A Confederacy of Dunces, this Australian novel also features odd protagonists offering meditations on the absurdity of modern life. In Fraction, Jasper Dean reflects upon a life with his crackpot, certifiably paranoid father. Martin drags his son through a series of wacky schemes and unexpected twists from Australia to Paris to Thailand.
“…she gave me a look that deftly combined tenderness with revulsion. To this day, the memory of that look still visits me like a Jehovah’s Witness: uninvited and tireless” –Steve Tolz
Candy, Luke Davies
Candy is a love story, a horror story and an adventure. Our narrator falls in love with Candy, a beautiful aspiring actress. They then introduce a third wheel into their relationship– heroin. While they remain in love, but their lives perform a slowly burning downward spiral as they get more and more out of control. “A beautifully written train wreck.”
Praise, Andrew McGahan
In Brisbane in the ’90s, it was easier to be on the dole than get a job, and heroin was better known than ecstasy. Praise is not your basic love story between two rebellious teenagers, but rather, it’s about their feeling of uncertainty and depression about the future.
“… a seminal piece of Australian grunge fiction.”
Boy Swallows Universe, Trent Dalton
I hesitated including yet another 80’s/90’s book featuring crooked family members and heroin. What on earth was going on in Australia during that time? However, it’s worth meeting our Eli as he struggles to follow his heart and learns how to do what it takes to become a good man.
“…hugging Dad back feels like the good thing to do and my hope is to grow into a good man, so I do it.” –Eli Bell

Historical Fiction: Long Skirts, Convicts and Gold
These books on Australian history cover the goldfields, to convict life, to the horrors of WWII.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Richard Flanagan
“The novel is about…life, death, despair, loneliness, love, connection, redemption, poetry. It’s a grim work, centered on the experiences of the Australian prisoners of war who were used as slave labor in the construction of the Thailand-Burma railway during World War II”.
The protagonist, Dorrigo Evans, is haunted by a love affair with this uncle’s wife and he battles to save the lives of his fellow POWs. This is yet another Booker prize winner by the author of The Sound of One Hand Clapping and Gould’s Book of Fish.
The Secret River, Kate Grenville
In 1806, Thomas Thornhill, an illiterate Englishman steals a load of wood, and for punishment he and his wife are deported to Australia. He realizes that, in order to make a life for his family, he must forcibly take the land from the people who came before him.
“A haunting, captivating, atmospheric, well-written saga of two worlds colliding in an uncompromising wilderness around the Hawkerville river near Perth, Australia.” Grenville won the Commonwealth prize for this book and she is also the author of The Lieutenant, which is also historical fiction.
True Story of the Kelly Gang, Peter Carey
Follow Ned Kelly’s wild ride around Victoria Australia as he robs banks and steals the hearts of his fellow countrymen. Carey tells the story from Kelly’s own point of view and it’s stuffed full of the colorful characters and colloquialisms. Carey is my favorite Australian author and he’s a genius at propelling the stories from the very first line.
“I lost my own father at 12 yr of age and know what it is to be raised on lies and silences. My dear daughter you are presently too young to understand a word of what I write but this history is for you and will contain no lie may I burn in Hell if I speak false.” — Ned Kelley
Preservation, Jock Serong
In 1797, a fishing boat picks up three shipwrecked survivors on a beach, all of whom are injured and distressed. They’ve walked for hundreds of miles, losing fourteen companions along the way. Lieutenant Joshua Grayling is tasked with investigating what happened but as he digs through their evasive story he uncovers a far more harrowing account than originally thought.
The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCullough
This sweeping epic follows three generations of the Cleary family as they live their lives on a sheep station in Drogheda. The central characters are Meggie (the only Cleary daughter) and her handsome, ambitious priest, Ralph de Bricassart. The book is a sprawling soap opera in a hauntingly beautiful setting.
Light Contemporary Fiction: Romance, Chick Lit and Doofy Dudes
Look, sometimes you just need to keep it light. These Australian novels do just that with the right touch of melodrama and goofy characters.
Big Little Lies, Liane Moriarty
The TV show may have been filmed on California’s Big Sur coastline, but the book is totally Sydney. On the surface, Big Little Lies is about a group of parents whose kids are entering kindergarten. But underneath, you’ll find layer after dark layer of marital issues, past trauma, abuse…and little lies…all of which blows up during Trivia Night at the local school.
The Dressmaker, Rosalie Ham
After twenty years spent mastering the art of dressmaking at couture houses in Paris, Tilly Dunnage returns to the small Australian town that she was banished from as a child. She’s there to tend to her somewhat crazy mother, who is also a town outcast. Satirical, dark and gothic.
The Rosie Project, Graeme Simsion
In this book club favorite, Simsion’s Don Tillman, a brilliant but socially awkward professor of genetics is determined to find himself a wife. Don’s Aspergers and Rosie’s free spirited nature make them an unlikely pair. “It’s a fun, quirky and erudite love story. It’s laugh-out-loud funny and unexpectedly touching.”
Read it for book club and use our Rosie Project discussion guide to get the conversation started. We also have other book guides featuring social awkward or neurodiverse characters, including: The Maid and Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine.
Amelia Westlake Was Never Here, Erin Gough
“If you’re looking for a smart YA contemporary featuring calculated plans to denounce sexist, misogynistic, homophobic and overall discriminatory behaviors at an elite private school as well as a slow-burn romance between the two female leads, this is the book for you”.
Follow Harriet and Will as they team up to expose the misdeeds of the swim coach, under the guise of the fictitious student, Amelia Westlake.
Beautiful Messy Love, Tess Woods
This contemporary romance follows four characters through their complicated and interconnected lives. Woods uses topical subjects like social media, terrorism and asylum seekers to keep the story line thoroughly modern.
Nick, a famous AFL player, falls for Anna, the Muslim daughter of Egyptian immigrant. Meanwhile, Nick’s sister Lily is struggling to finish her medical degree when she meets and immediately falls for Toby.
I Am the Messenger, Markus Zusak
This is a twisty and page-turning book by the author of The Book Thief (which is not a book on Australia, but it’s heart-breaker with a surprisingly sympathetic narrator, and worth a read).
Ed Kennedy is our main character here. He’s an underage cabdriver, who likes to hang with his dog but sucks at doing his taxes. After foiling a bank robbery, he begins receiving messages that steer him towards helping others, bringing his humanity along for the ride.
If you have read and loved The Book Thief, you should also check out our list of books that feature books in the storylines.
Disco Boy, Dominic Knight
“Paul Johnson is the king of rancid retro, and while he has the musical jumper leads to get even the most dismal party started, he can’t get his own life moving. Trapped in a job he despises, a perpetual failure with the ladies and living at home with his distinctly unhelpful parents, Paul’s stuck in limbo while everyone around him is limbo-dancing.”
Paul is the ultimate beta-hero.
Best Australian Books for Crime Lovers and Thrill Seekers
Down Under has some dark history and some of the best Australian books explore it with murder and mayhem. These contemporary mysteries and thrillers are well written, taut and worth reading in a comfy chair and a hot tea.
The Dry (Aaron Falk series #1), Jane Harper
It’s refreshing to find a main character in a mystery series who has enough issues to make him interesting but isn’t a total wreck. Harper’s Aaron Falk is such a man. In The Dry, he is back in his hometown attending the funeral of his best friend. The visit surfaces old suspicious of regarding Falk’s alleged involvement in a murder.
He reluctantly decides to investigate and lays bare a host of town secrets. Keep an eye on Harper, because she is turning out some solid Australian novels featuring mysterious Australian landscapes as a key character.
Bad Debts (Jack Irish #1), Peter Temple
Jack Irish is a fully formed gumshoe. He’s got all of the cred; dodgy and opportunistic, with a softer side as a recovering alcoholic, wood worker and footy fan. He brings Melbourne to life as he tries to figure out why his ex-client has turned up dead. If you like Bad Debts, there are four more in the series to keep you busy.
Moonlight Downs (Emily Tempest #1), Adrian Hylands
“Emily Tempest, a feisty part-Aboriginal woman, who left home to get an education and has since traveled abroad. She returns to visit the Moonlight Downs ‘mob’, still uncertain if she belongs in the Aboriginal world or that of the ‘whitefellers’. Within hours of her arrival, an old friend is murdered and mutilated.”
The police suspect a rogue Aborigine, and Emily tries to solve the mystery in an effort to help the community heal.
Jasper Jones, Craig Silvey
It’s 1965 and Western Australia is having a scorching hot summer. Bookish Charlie and the town outcast head out into the night, where they find a grisly discovery. The boys develop an unlikely friendship as they try to unravel the mysterious they encountered. But they also encounter small town prejudices, racism, hostility and even a sweet love story.
“The mood and atmosphere of the 1960s small-town Australian setting is perfectly realized—suspenseful, menacing, and claustrophobic—with issues of race and class boiling just below the surface.”
Scrublands (Martin Scarsden #1), Chris Hammer
Journalist Martin Scarsden arrives in Riversend thinking that he is simply covering the anniversary of a tragic mass shooting by the local priest. But the stories that he hears from the congregation don’t square with the accepted (and reported) version of the events. Hammer weaves together multiple story lines into a page turning, atmospheric crime read.
Stolen: A Letter to my Captor, Lucy Christopher
“It happened like this. I was stolen from an airport. Taken from everything I knew, everything I was used to. Taken to sand and heat, dirt and danger. And he expected me to love him.“
Christopher set out to challenge her readers to question their own relationships, and she does so in a heartbreaking and disturbing way.
The Van Apfel Girls are Gone, Felicity McLean
Billed as the cross-breed of The Virgin Suicides and Picnic at Hanging Rock, this book follows Tikka Malloy and her town as they react to the mysterious disappearance of the Van Apfel girls.
“This book is so rich and lush in atmosphere. I could feel the heat wave of this Australian summer as the hot sun kissed my skin. “
Speculative Books Set in Australia: Fantasy and Dystopic Realities
These books are set in Australia, but they manage to straddle a line between a gritty reality and fantasy. At least, I hope it’s fantasy, because there is some seriously disturbing stuff going on in Australia’s speculative future.
Tomorrow When the War Begins, John Marsden
This is my kind of dystopian book: lots of action, plucky teenagers and plenty of food. Ellie and her friends return from a camping trip to find that their whole town has been mysteriously abducted. They have to decide whether to run, give up, or stand and fight.
“These teens aren’t dumbed down…they read complicated and brave and scared and falling apart all at the same time”. This book is part of a series, so if you like the first one, you’ve got six more coming.
Terra Nullius, Claire G. Coleman
Australia’s distant future looks a lot like its colonial past. In the hot, dusty landscape of Western Australia, the Settlers have taken over, relegating the Natives to, essentially, cattle status. Some of the self-righteous Settlers deploy terror and brutality, while others are just trying to make a life on the land.
“It was a land of bones he walked, a land of death and bones and pain. He had helped make it that way, had added bones to the soil. He was as guilty as any other. “ — Claire G. Coleman
The Natural Way of Things, Charlotte Wood
In this dystopic story, reminiscent of The Handmaid’s Tale, two women wake up from a drugged sleep to find themselves imprisoned in the remote Outback. As they toil in the brutal sun at the abandoned outpost, they come to learn that they each have a connection to a sexual scandal with a powerful man.
It’s a challenging feminist parable with darkly realistic overtones. Winner of the 2016 Stella award.
Books Featuring Aboriginal Culture and History
If you want to understand Australia, you need to get a primer on Aboriginal culture. What follows are a sampling of the best Australian books on the subject.
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Thomas Keneally
This book is based upon true events and features Blacksmith, a half-Ango and half-Aboriginal, who feels out of place in both cultures. He attempts to assimilate by marrying a white woman and entering white society. But the racist culture conspires against him. Driven by hopelessness, rage, and despair, Jimmie commits a series of savage and terrible acts of vengeance.
Keneally is best known for Schlinder’s List, for which he won the Booker Prize, but he was also shortlisted for Jimmie Blacksmith.
Taboo: A Novel, Kim Scott
The “taboo” of the title is the site of a 100 year old massacre of native Noongar people that occurred when they attempted to retrieve a women who had been stolen from their community. The present day owner of the farm is hoping to cleanse the moral stain of the massacre and he invites the Noongar to visit.
The book touches on themes of language, lore and self-discovery for the protagonist, Tilly Coolman.
Carpentaria, Alexis Wright
In this Aboriginal epic, Wright gives voice to Australia’s native population, their myths and oral traditions. It’s a magically realistic swirl of the tropical north featuring a culture clash between the Aboriginal and white populations. It was the unambiguous winner of the Miles Franklin award in 2017.
Novels Set in the Australian Outback
The Outback is its own character in so many Australian books. It features heavily in these five books which range from romance to WWII history to coming of age.
The Shepherd’s Hut, Tim Winton
Winton’s latest masterpiece crafts the story of Jaxie Clackton, a rural youth who has been brutalized. He flees from the scene of his father’s violent death, into the outback of Western Australia. Along the way, he meets a mysterious fellow exile and they come to rely upon one another while forming an unlikely friendship.
The book whipsaws between hope and danger and while reading it, I found myself rooting for Jaxie.
The Spirits of the Ghan, Judy Nunn
As Australia charges into the new millennium, a century-old dream is about to be realized, with a railway link connecting Adelaide with the Top End. The completion of the mighty Ghan railway is hitting complications in Alice Springs and its up to Jessica Manning to negotiate with local Elders to smooth the way.
My Brilliant Career, Miles Franklin
“Alternately hilarious and heartwarming, this beloved coming-of-age novel from the Australian outback brings together unforgettable characters with clarity and truth, all told in a unique young woman’s voice.”
This is Jane Eyre meets Pride and Prejudice in the Australian bush.
A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
Jean Paget, a young Englishwoman living in Malaysia, is captured by the invading Japanese and forced onto a brutal 7-month death March. She returns home intact but later decides to revisit the villagers who saved her life. While there, she learns something that sends her to a remote Australian outpost, requiring her to use all of the courage and determination at her disposal.
Dear Banjo (Daughters of the Outback #1), Sasha Wasley
Not everything in the Outback is about true grit and loneliness. In Dear Banjo, we meet Willow Paterson and Tom Forrest, who were once in love but who have drifted apart. When Willow returns to town to take over the family property, she reads the tattered pages of old letters from Tom and discovers what has remained hidden for ten years.
Non-Fiction Australian History Books
These seven history books feature grit, determination and nature as key characters in Australia’s backstory.
Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence, Doris Pilkington
“Following an Australian government edict in 1931, black Aboriginal children and children of mixed marriages were gathered up by whites and taken to settlements to be assimilated. This extraordinary story of courage and faith is based on the actual experiences of three girls who fled from the repressive life of Moore River Native Settlement, following along the rabbit-proof fence back to their homelands”.
The Reef: The Great Barrier Reef from Captain Cook to Climate Change, Iain McCalman
In this biographical exploration of Australia’s 1,400 mile reef, you’ll hear about twenty explorers, castaways, naturalists and environmentalists who have collectively shaped our ideas about the reef.
The Bush, Don Watson
In another geographical history, Watson shares with us Australia’s bush heritage. He looks at the roles of the indigenous peoples, convicts, settlers and migrants who have attempted to share space with the fora and the fauna.
“The prolonged solitary exposure to the bush that makes some people odd or crazy might in others bring the active and contemplative life into perfect harmony or grace.” — Don Watson
Ned Kelly, Peter Fitzsimons
As a companion to Peter Carey’s fictionalized account of Ned Kelly’s life (noted above), Fitzsimons attempts to piece together a credible accounting of Kelly’s life. Many historians disagree over whether or not he was a lawless thug or Robin Hood, and this epic read will give you the information to decide for yourself.
The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka, Clare Wright
The battle at the Eureka Stockade is Australia’s independence story. And yet, most of the history books focus just on the dudes. Wright corrects that oversight with a look at the thousands of women who were working in the goldfields at the time of the rebellion. Winner of the Stella Prize in 2014.
True Girt: The Unauthorized History of Australia, David Hunt
The word “girt” is Australian slang for the past tense of gird, as in “gird your loins” and is rarely used…except for the Australian national anthem. In Hunt’s unconventional history of Australia, he breezily brings to light the country’s checkered past with colorful, corrupt characters.
“Australia was the place to be. Unless you were black. Or a woman. Or gay. Or suspected of being Irish. Or even worse, all of the above.” — David Hunt
The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia’s Founding, Robert Hughes
The history of Australia’s birth, arising from England’s infamous convict transportation system. He covers the difficult conditions under which the prisoners worked off their sentences as well as the the Aboriginal extinction that came with the colonization of the land.
If you like these kinds of deep historical explorations, check out my list of books set in Spain. It includes a Hughes book about Barcelona and quite a few other historical novels set during the civil war and the Inquisition.
Memoirs: Refugees, Outcasts and Racism
These memoirs aren’t for the feint of heart. Each of the authors have experienced true adversity.
No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison, Behrouz Boochani
Omid Tofighian, translator
Boochani is a well-respected Kurdish journalist who fled from Iran to escape persecution. When his refugee boat capsized, he was indefinitely and illegally detained at the Australian detention center on Manus Island, where he remains today. While the detention center closed in 2017, the prisoners remain, fending for themselves on the island. He painstakingly wrote this memoir using a smuggled cell phone and Whatsapp. This remarkable book won the Victorian Prize for Literature.
The Hate Race, Maxine Beneba Clarke
In the 80’s and 90’s, suburban, middle-class Australia meant one thing if you were White, and another thing entirely if you were Black. Clarke’s unflinching memoir explores the full range of racism that she experienced, from explicit hate through well-meaning (but just as damaging) ignorance.
“I learned to stay quiet. I learned that nobody much cared. I learned that it was probably my fault anyway, and that what they were doing to me was perfectly okay. This is how it alters us. This is how we change.” — Maxine Beneba Clarke
Talking to My Country, Stan Grant
In this missive to his countrymen, Grant writes passionately about what its like to grow up in Aboriginal Australia. By sharing the challenges he experienced growing up, he highlights the cultural inequities facing modern Australia and challenges his countrymen to do better.
Tracks: One Woman’s Journey Across 1,700 Miles of Australian Outback, Robyn Davidson
Davidson journeyed across 1,700 miles of intense Outback with only four camels and a dog for company. She says, “I experienced that sinking feeling you get when you know you have conned yourself into doing something difficult and there’s no going back.”
Dang! You go girl!
A Fortunate Life, A.B. Facey
This humble memoir follows Facey from the time that he was two (and abandoned by his mother), through World Wars I and II, the Depression, getting lost in the Outback, struggling to become literate and a long marriage to his wife of 60 years.
“Facey is an old-fashioned gentleman, something that comes through in the various tales within this wonderful book. It is a true historical account, a glimpse back into yesteryear more entertaining and rich than many other “official” historical documents. “
He Died With a Felafel in His Hand, John Birmingham
This is the kind of wacky stuff that happens when you are in your ’20’s and barely scraping by. You get a roof over your head by renting 13 different house shares with 89 crazies and eccentrics.
And then you take notes.
Read More Books
If you like armchair travel, we have a whole series of books set around the world.
- Books set in Jordan.
- Books set in Spain.
- Books set in Cuba.
- Books set in Sri Lanka.
- Books set in Scotland.
- Books set in Paris.
- Books set in Colombia.
- Books set in Iceland.
- Books set in Ireland.
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