Why read Aussie authors?
Australia is an incredibly interesting country, with a vast array of landscapes, wildlife and history that spans across a very large space, there’s no shortage of opportunities for writers to delve into an area that interests them.
It’s clear that there is a huge amount of support from readers within Australia for our local authors, these stories are popular for a reason – there’s some truly talented voices and amazing works that have been published over the years!
Stories can connect us to the land and to each other – I would love to put a particular emphasis on the works of our First Nations People, their stories enrich our literary world and are an excellent way to broaden our understanding and acknowledgement of Indigenous experiences and history.
So, without further ado, here are some of the best books set in the Land Down Under!
Best Australian Poetry Collections:
Dropbear by Evelyn Araluen
Also available as an eBook (Libby).
An innovative collection of poetry and prose from a vibrant new Indigenous voice on the Australian literary scene.
This fierce debut from award-winning writer Evelyn Araluen confronts the tropes and iconography of an unreconciled nation with biting satire and lyrical fury.
Through Old Eyes by Uncle Wes Marne
Published to commemorate the author’s 100th birthday, this wide-ranging and thoughtful collection reflects on history, colonisation, family, childhood, Aboriginal Dreaming, traditions and storytelling, working lives and people.
Sometimes wistful, melancholic, poignant, at times the author’s wry sense of fun and humour shines through.
Harvest Lingo by Lionel Fogarty
Harvest Lingo is the fourteenth collection of poems by Lionel Fogarty, a Murri man with traditional connections to the Yugambeh people from south of Brisbane and the Kudjela people of north Queensland.
He is a leading Indigenous rights activist, and one of Australia's foremost poets, and this collection displays all of the urgency, energy and linguistic audacity for which Fogarty is known.
Whisper Songs by Tony Birch
In this stunning collection Tony Birch invites the reader into a tender conversation with those he loves - and has loved - the most.
He also challenges the past to speak up by interrogating the archive, including documents from his own family history, highlighting forcefully the ways in which the personal is also intensely political.
Best Books with Australian Wildlife and Nature as a Feature:
The Animals in that Country by Laura Jean McKay
Also available as an eBook (Libby).
As disturbing news arrives of a pandemic sweeping the country, Jean realises this is no ordinary flu: its chief symptom is that its victims begin to understand the language of animals: first mammals, then birds and insects, too.
Bold, exhilarating, and wholly original, The Animals in That Country asks what would happen, for better or worse, if we finally understood what animals were saying.
Blueback by Tim Winton
Also available as eBook (Libby), eAudio (Borrow Box), Audio (MP3) and Dyslexia Friendly Font.
Abel Jackson loves to dive. He's a natural in the water. He can't remember a time when he couldn't use a mask and snorkel to glide down into the clear deep.
Life is tough out at Longboat Bay. Every day the boy helps his mother earn their living from the sea and the land. It's hard work but Abel has the bush and the sky and the bay to himself. Until the day he meets Blueback, the fish that changes his life.
Plants: Past Present and Future by Zena Cumpston, Lesley Head and Michael-Shawn Fletcher
What do you need to know to prosper as a people for at least 65,000 years? The First Knowledges series provides a deeper understanding of the expertise and ingenuity of Indigenous Australians.
This book celebrates the deep cultural significance of plants and shows how engaging with this heritage could be the key to a healthier, more sustainable future.
Flames by Robbie Arnott
A young man named Levi McAllister decides to build a coffin for his twenty-three-year-old sister, Charlotte, who promptly runs for her life. A water rat swims upriver in quest of the cloud god. A fisherman named Karl hunts for tuna in partnership with a seal. And a father takes form from fire.
The answers to these riddles are to be found in this tale of grief and love and the bonds of family, tracing a journey across the southern island that takes us full circle.
Best Australian Crime Novels:
The Shifting Landscape by Katherine Kovacic
Art dealer Alex Clayton travels to Victoria's Western District to value the MacMillan family's collection. At their historic sheep station, she finds an important and previously unknown colonial painting - and a family fraught with tension.
There are arguments about the future of the property and its place in an ancient and highly indigenous landscape.
The Dry by Jane Harper
Also available in Large Print, eAudio (Libby), eBook (Borrow Box), Audiobook (CD), and as a Book Club Kit. You can also watch the screen adaptation of this book on DVD.
Amid the worst drought to ravage Australia in a century, it hasn't rained in small country town Kiewarra for two years. Tensions in the community become unbearable when three members of the Hadler family are brutally murdered. Everyone thinks Luke Hadler, who committed suicide after slaughtering his wife and six-year-old son, is guilty. Policeman Aaron Falk returns to the town of his youth for the funeral of his childhood best friend, and is unwillingly drawn into the investigation.
The Broken Shore by Peter Temple
Also available as eAudio (Borrow Box), eBook (Libby).
A novel about a place, about family, about politics and power, and the need to live decently in a world where so much is rotten. Joe Cashin was different once. He moved easily then; was surer and less thoughtful. But there are consequences when you’ve come so close to dying. For Cashin, this included a posting away from the world of Homicide to the quiet place on the coast where he grew up.
Now all he has to do is play the country cop and walk the dogs. And sometimes think about how he was before. Then prominent local Charles Bourgoyne is bashed and left for dead. Tragedy after tragedy begins to unfold...
Dirt Town by Hayley Scrivenor
Also available as eAudio (Borrow Box), Audiobook (MP3), eBook (Borrow Box).
On a sweltering Friday afternoon in Durton, best friends Ronnie and Esther leave school together. Esther never makes it home, Ronnie's going to find her, she has a plan. Lewis will help. Their friend can't be gone, Ronnie won't believe it. Detective Sergeant Sarah Michaels can believe it. She has seen what people are capable of. She knows more than anyone how, in a moment of weakness, a person can be driven to do something they never thought possible.
You can read Jane Cowell's "CEO Reads" review of Dirt Town here!
Best Books Based in Australia in General:
Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens by Shankari Chandran
Also available as eAudio (Libby), and as a Book Club Kit.
Cinnamon Gardens Nursing Home is nestled in the quiet suburb of Westgrove, Sydney - populated with residents with colourful histories, each with their own secrets, triumphs and failings. This is their safe place, an oasis of familiar delights - a beautiful garden, a busy kitchen and a bountiful recreation schedule. Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens is about family and memory, community and race, but is ultimately a love letter to story-telling and how our stories shape who we are.
Too Much Lip by Melissa Lucashenko
Also available as an eBook (Libby), and as a Book Club Kit.
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 takes a Harley and heads south to Durrongo. Kerry's plan is 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.
Butterfly Song by Terri Janke
Tarena Shaw has just finished her law degree but isn't sure she wants to be a lawyer after all. What place does a black lawyer have in a white system? Does everyone in Sydney feel like a turtle without a shell? Drawn to Thursday Island, the home of her grandparents, Tarena is persuaded by her family to take on her first case. Part of the evidence is a man with a guitar and a very special song.. Butterfly Song moves from the pearling days of the Torres Strait to the ebb and flow of big-city life, with a warm and funny modern heroine whose story reaches across cultures.
Blakwork by Alison Whittaker
Also available as an eBook (Libby).
Alison Whittaker's second book, Blakwork, is a bold mix of poetry, micro-fiction, memoir and critique, and a follow-up to her award-wining debut poetry collection, Lemons in the Chicken Wire...Whittaker has drawn on the strength of past generations to become a strong blak woman in contemporary Australia, and readers are gifted her insights into growing up blak.
With a unique style of writing, she bravely unpacks themes such as colonisation and Aboriginal rights in Australia.