I’m an author, poet, and editor who works in natural history and social history publishing by day, explaining the unique flora and fauna, culture, and spirit of this ancient continent. By night, I moonlight as a fiction author, writing whatever takes my fancy. Seeing Australia and understanding Australia aren’t always the same thing in a country with unforgiving stony desert at its heart, more venomous creepy-crawlies than you can ‘poke a stick at’ (but please don’t!), the oldest living culture in the world, and a complex history. So, here are my recommendations for novels that travel deep into the Australian spirit.
Juliette Brewer can’t face the truth.
Ash Gordon can’t bear another lie.
A passion for surfing brings them together,
but will the sea, with all its sorrows, tear them apart?
Be swept away by this contemporary Australian surf romance with all the depth of the Pacific.
“I want to live my life in this book and I know I'll be happy. It's realistic and fun and loving and all I hope for. Karin Cox, you rock!" Linda, Kalpa's Book Blog
Winton is one of Australia’s most celebrated authors for his effortless prose. In Breath, he vividly captures the moment restless ennui of life in a small town meets the Australian desire to push boundaries, building background tension that eventually crashes Aussie surf culture down like a dumper and leaves everything broken. While the award-winning Cloudstreet is often considered Winton’s ‘Great Australian Novel’, the historic setting and vernacular felt somewhat contrived to me. I consider Breath Winton’s true masterpiece, which stays with you long after you finish the final page.
'Exhilarating' Sunday Times 'Rapturous' Sunday Telegraph 'A remarkable tale of grace and danger' Financial Times
When paramedic Bruce Pike is called out to deal with another teenage adventure gone wrong, he knows better than anyone what happened and how. Thirty years before, that dead boy could have been him. Bruce remembers what it was like to be a risk-taking kid, to feel that thrill and that fear . . .
Breath by Tim Winton is the story of Bruce and his best friend Loonie, and the surfing obsession that changed both of their lives. It is about the exhilaration of…
To me, this is the original Cloudstreet—a true-to-life, bittersweet tale of the impoverished Darcy family and their tribulations in a slum in Surrey Hills, Sydney, following the depression. Ruth Park might be a Kiwi (New Zealander), but we won’t hold that against her, although some might be unable to see past the attitudes and occasional slurs that were prevalent at the time. This is the second book in Park’s heartwarming, gritty and realistic series about Australian persistence and courage in the face of misfortune but it was written and published first. While parts of this Australia of yesteryear are now long gone, the love and laughter the Darcy family share still have a place set for it at Australian dinner tables.
An Australian classic, this is the story of the Darcy family who live in the Depression era tenements of Surry Hills, Sydney.
Hugh and Margaret Darcy are raising their family in Sydney amid the brothels, grog shops, and run-down boarding houses of Surry Hills, where money is scarce and life is not easy.
Filled with beautifully drawn characters that will make you laugh as much as cry, this Australian classic will take you straight back to the colourful slums of Sydney with convincing depth, careful detail, and great heart.
It’s easy to see why this novel won the 2020 Miles Franklin Award (Australia’s highest literary honour). Not only does it tell an important story about the need to preserve Indigenous Australian culture and languages, but its characters are so deftly wrought, so relatable, that you feel like you are there with them, battling to save Prosperous from destruction and avoid dispossession following the death of Albert 'Poppy' Gondiwindi and the slow, terminal decline of all he once knew. Winch’s evocative prose, particularly obvious in ‘Poppy’s’ voice, is a delight to read. Augustine, with her search for belonging, remembering, and sometimes forgetting following the suspicious death of her sister, is an exercise in complexity.
"A beautifully written novel that puts language at the heart of remembering the past and understanding the present."-Kate Morton
"A groundbreaking novel for black and white Australia."-Richard Flanagan, Man Booker Prize winning author of The Narrow Road to the Deep North
A young Australian woman searches for her grandfather's dictionary, the key to halting a mining company from destroying her family's home and ancestral land in this exquisitely written, heartbreaking, yet hopeful novel of culture, language, tradition, suffering, and empowerment in the tradition of Louise Erdrich, Sandra Cisneros, and Amy Harmon.
Knowing that he will soon die, Albert "Poppy" Gondiwindi…
First published in 1894, this is definitely a nostalgic choice; however, there’s a good reason why it became the first Australian novel to be continuously in print for 100 years in 1994. Esther Turner’s classic novel is Australia’s answer to Little Women, and if you don’t fall in love with the seven boisterous Woolcot children and end up in tears over the tragic events at Yarrahappini, I’m afraid you’re even harder-hearted than Captain Woolcot himself!
This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic, timeless works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.
Equal parts quirky, literary, humorous, and touching, Dalton’s debut novel won him a record four Australian Book Industry Awards in 2019, and it’s not hard to see why. Boy Swallows Universe follows the ups and downs of teen protagonist Eli’s descent into a world of drug-lords and prison barons, all while caring for his messed-up parents and mute brother and seeing the world in a uniquely beautiful way. Ex-journalist Dalton’s prose will sometimes take your breath away in this modern classic about life in the far-outer suburbs of Brisbane, Australia, where a ‘normal’ life seems simultaneously too far away and too close for comfort.
'The most extraordinary writer - a rare talent' Nikki Gemmell
An utterly wonderful novel of love, crime, magic, fate and coming of age from one of Australia's most exciting new writers.
Brisbane, 1983: A lost father, a mute brother, a mum in jail, a heroin dealer for a stepfather and a notorious criminal for a babysitter. It's not as if Eli's life isn't complicated enough already. He's just trying to follow his heart, learning what it takes to be a good man, but life just keeps throwing obstacles in the way - not least of which is Tytus Broz, legendary…
I grew up on a family farm surrounded by larger vegetable and dairy operations that used migrant labor. From an early age, my siblings and I were acquainted with the children of these workers, children whom we shared a school desk with one day and were gone the next. On summer vacations, our parents hauled us around in a station wagon with a popup camper, which they parked in out-of-the-way hayfields and on mountainous plateaus, shunning, much to our chagrin, normal campgrounds, and swimming pools. Thus, I grew up exposed to different cultures and environments. My writing reflects my parents’ curiosity, love of books and travel, and devotion to the natural world.
After her mother is killed in a rare Northern Michigan tornado, Sadie Wixom is left with only her father and grandfather to guide her through young adulthood. Miles away in western Saskatchewan, Stefan Montegrand and his Indigenous family are displaced from their land by multinational energy companies. They are taken in temporarily by Sadie’s aunt, a human rights activist who heads a cultural exchange program.
Stefan promptly runs afoul of local authority, but Sadie, intrigued by him and captivated by his story, has grown sympathetic to his cause and complicit in his pushback against prejudiced accusations. Their mutual attraction is stymied when Stefan’s older brother, Joachim, who stayed behind, becomes embroiled in the resistance, and Stefan is compelled to return to Canada. Sadie, concerned for his safety, impulsively follows on a trajectory doomed by cultural misunderstanding and oncoming winter.
After her mother is killed in a rare Northern Michigan tornado, Sadie Wixom is left with only her father and grandfather to guide her through the pitfalls of young adulthood. Hundreds of miles away in western Saskatchewan, Stefan Montegrand and his Indigenous family are forced off their land by multinational energy companies and flawed treaties. They are taken in temporarily by Sadie's aunt, a human rights activist who heads a cultural exchange program. Stefan, whose own father died in prison while on a hunger strike, promptly runs afoul of local authority, but Sadie, intrigued by him and captivated by his…
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