For the Term of His Natural Life

Author	Tim Winton
ISBN	0743234413

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. An award-winning work, Cloudstreet exemplifies the brilliant ability of fiction...

Author	Kate Grenville
ISBN	1841959146

In 1806 William Thornhill, an illiterate English bargeman and a man of quick temper but deep compassion, steals a load of wood and, as a part of his lenient sentence, is deported, along with his beloved wife, Sal, to the New South Wales colony in what would become Australia. The Secret River is the tale...

Author	Albert B. Facey
ISBN	0140081674

This is the extraordinary life of an ordinary man. It is the story of Albert Facey, who lived with simple honesty, compassion and courage. A parentless boy who started work at eight on the rough West Australian frontier, he struggled as an itinerant rural worker, survived the gore of Gallipoli, the loss...

Author	Tim Winton
ISBN	0330490265

Luther Fox, a loner, haunted by his past, makes his living as an illegal fisherman, a shamateur. Before everyone in his family was killed in a freak rollover, he grew melons and played guitar in the family band. Robbed of all that, he has turned his back on music. There's too much emotion in it, too much memory...

Author	Miles Franklin
ISBN	1600963781

"My Brilliant Career" is the story of Sybylla, a headstrong young girl growing up in early 20th century Australia. Sybylla rejects the opportunity to marry a wealthy young man in order to maintain her independence. As a consequence she must take a job as a governess to a local family to which her father...

Author	Sally Morgan
ISBN	0949206318

Looking at the views and experiences of three generations of indigenous Australians, this autobiography unearths political and societal issues contained within Australia's indigenous culture. Sally Morgan traveled to her grandmother’s birthplace, starting a search for information about...

Author	Ruth Park
ISBN	0140008535

Since it was first published in 1948, this compassionate novel has become a favourite with generations of Australian readers.

The Harp in the South is a nostalgic and moving portrait of the eventful family life of the Darcys of Number Twelve-and-a-Half Plymouth Street in Surry Hills, a Sydney...

Author	Alan Marshall
ISBN	0143003046

I first read Alan Marshall's autobiography of his childhood - I Can Jump Puddles (1955) as part of the school curriculum in early high school. I loved the bighearted story of overcoming adversity then, but wasn't sure what to expect when I reread it as part of the Popsugar 2016 book challenge (a book your...

Author	Helen Garner
ISBN	0140049533

In "Monkey Grip", Helen Garner charts the lives of a generation. Her characters are exploring new ways of loving and living - and nothing is harder than learning to love lightly. Nora and Javo are trapped in a desperate relationship. Nora's addiction is romantic love; Javo's is hard drugs. The harder...

Author	George Johnston
ISBN	0207187320

3.5 stars
It was only after I finished reading My Brother Jack by George Johnston that I discovered it had been the winner of the 1964 Miles Franklin award. To win, novels must be of the highest literary merit and present Australian life in any of its phases There is no question in my mind that this was...

Author	Patrick White
ISBN	0099324512

Patrick White’s style is a unique blend of roughness and literacy that can become quite absorbing, mesmerizing even, for its timelessness. The minor details of ordinary lives fuse with poetic vision and transform the common experience of man into the absolute essence that holds the power to make...

Author	Ethel Turner
ISBN	1428041451

19th century Australia: Captain Woolcot, having lost his wife tragically young, remarried a much younger young woman to provide his six children with a new mother. Together, they had another child, making seven. The Captain felt it was necessary to run the family with army discipline, but his rules...

Author	Thomas Keneally
ISBN	0207197164

The extraordinary Booker Prize shortlisted story of a black man's revenge against an unjust and intolerant society. Thomas Keneally was born in Sydney Australia in 1935. He studied to be a Catholic priest but abandoned his vocation to take up teaching and writing. He is the author of numerous works...

Author	Norman Lindsay
ISBN	0140300988

"Gentlemen," said the Judge, "I must remind you that we require a Review!"

"We don't needs no Review," replied Sam rudely, "We just needs to get away from them rascally Puddin'-thieves." And he pointed to the Wombat and the Possum, lurking in the comment thread, who looked up with a guilty start.

"Ignore...

Author	Jeannie Gunn
ISBN	1406500232

I had already read this book many years ago but somehow I had forgotten how sad the ending is! To have so much for just fourteen months and then have to return to Melbourne alone to pick up the pieces of her former life. It must have been really hard.

Anyway, I enjoyed this memoir from 1902, when Australia...

Author	Elizabeth Jolley
ISBN	0140089012

"She wondered how Kathy could suddenly look dishonest. She had to realise that it was not sudden, that she had always dreaded a revelation of something not quite truthful."

Australian Gothic? Love it.
Hester, a lonely rich spinster takes on the beautiful 16 year orphan Kathy. Starved...

Author

Frank J. Hardy

Power Without Glory caused a sensation when it was released, leading to a famous court case. It is a thinly veiled description of the rise to power of real life figure John Wren (in the book 'John West').

Some other people alluded to in the book include Tommy Bent, Sir Samuel Gillott, the gangster...