Constant Reader's 30 Best Australian Books of the 21st Century
In early July, the New York Times published their Best 100 Books of the 21st Century. We found it a bit parochial so we put together our own. Here they are, in random order, Constant Reader's 30 Best Australian Books of the 21st Century (So Far):
The Shepherd's Hut by Tim Winton
22.99 AUD
Category: Fiction
In one terrible moment Jaxie Clackton's life is stripped to little more than what he can carry and how he can keep himself alive. There's just one person left in the world who understands him and what he still dares to hope for. But to reach her he'll have to cross the vast saltlands on a trek that only ...Show more
Stasiland by Anna Funder
22.99 AUD
Category: Non-Fiction
Winner of the BBC Four Samuel Johnson PrizeTruth can be stranger - and more heartbreaking and hilarious - than fiction.In this now classic work, Funder tells extraordinary stories from the most perfected surveillance state of all time, the former East Germany. She meets Miriam, condemned as an enemy of ...Show more
The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island by Chloe Hooper
24.99 AUD
Category: Australian Non-Fiction
The story of a death, a policeman, an island and a country.The Tall Manis 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 Hu ...Show more
The Dry by Jane Harper
22.99 AUD
Category: Crime | Series: Aaron Falk
WHO REALLY KILLED THE HADLER FAMILY? It hasn't rained in Kiewarra for two years. Tensions in the farming community become unbearable when three members of the Hadler family are discovered shot to death on their property. Everyone assumes Luke Hadler committed suicide after slaughtering his wife and six- ...Show more
The Dig Tree: The Story of Burke and Wills by Sarah Murgatroyd
24.95 AUD
Category: Australian Non-Fiction
The harrowing true story of the Burke and Willis expedition team who took on the Australian wilds 150 years ago--and lost. They departed Melbourne's Royal Park in the summer of 1860, a misfit party of eighteen amateur explorers cheered on by thousands of well-wishers. Their mission: to chart a course ac ...Show more
The Secret River by Kate Grenville
22.99 AUD
Category: Fiction | Series: Historical Trilogy Ser.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE WINNER OF THE 2006 COMMONWEALTH WRITERS' PRIZELONGLISTED FOR THE IMPAC DUBLIN PRIZELondon, 1806. William Thornhill, happily wedded to his childhood sweetheart Sal, is a waterman on the River Thames. Life is tough but bearable until William makes a mistake, a bad mist ...Show more
Questions of Travel by Michelle de Kretser
22.99 AUD
Category: Fiction
"It is not really possible to describe, in a short space, the originality and depth of this long and beautifully crafted book."--A.S. Byatt, Guardian Laura Fraser grows up in Sydney, motherless, with a cold, professional father and an artistic bent. Ravi Mendis lives on the other side of the globe--expl ...Show more
Past the Shallows by Favel Parrett
22.99 AUD
Category: Fiction
"If you read only one book this year, make sure it's this" (The Sunday Times, London): An award-winning debut novel from a rising star in Australia--a hauntingly beautiful story about the bond of brotherhood and the fragility of youth. Joe, Miles, and Harry are growing up on the remote southern coas ...Show more
Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey
23.99 AUD
Category: Fiction
A 2012 Michael L. Printz Honor Book Charlie Bucktin, a bookish thirteen year old, is startled one summer night by an urgent knock on his bedroom window. His visitor is Jasper Jones, an outcast in their small mining town, and he has come to ask for Charlie's help. Terribly afraid but desperate to impress ...Show more
A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz
22.99 AUD
Category: Fiction
The Father is Martin Dean.He taught his son always to make up his mind, and then change it. An impossible, brilliant, restless man, he just wanted the world to listen to him - and the trouble started when the world did.The Uncle is Terry Dean.As a boy, Terry was the local sporting hero. As a man, he bec ...Show more
Joe Cinque's Consolation by Helen Garner
24.99 AUD
Category: Australian Non-Fiction
In October 1997, a clever young law student at ANU made a bizarre plan to murder her devoted boyfriend after a dinner party at their house. Some of the dinner guests - most of them university students - had heard rumours of the plan. Nobody warned Joe Cinque. He died one Sunday, in his own bed, of a mas ...Show more
Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
22.99 AUD
Category: Fiction
When the plague visits an isolated village in the English countryside, a housemaid named Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine and healer. Through Anna's eyes we follow the story of the fateful year of 1666, as she and her fellow villagers endure a self-imposed quarantine to keep the disease from sp ...Show more