The Bookshelf

More than 280,000 readers voted. Now Kate and Cassie reveal the books that just missed Radio National's Top 100 Australian Books countdown.
With special guests literary curator and Top 100 producer Michaela Kalowski, and critic and publisher Geordie Williamson, they unpack the biggest talking points from the vote and spotlight the next 100 books in Australia's literary ranking.
Download a printable Top 100 Australian Books 1-100 ranked
Also, the list from 101-200
The 'Ones That Got Away' List: 101-200
101 — Phosphorescence (2019) — Julia Baird
102 — Bliss (1981) — Peter Carey
103 — Always Home Always Homesick (2025) — Hannah Kent
104 — Kissed by the Moon (2013) — Alison Lester
105 — The Sound of One Hand Clapping (1997) — Richard Flanagan
106 — A Room Made of Leaves (2020) — Kate Grenville
107 — The Eleventh Hour (1988) — Graeme Base
108 — The Labyrinth (2020) — Amanda Lohrey
109 — Fight Like a Girl (2016) — Clementine Ford
110 — Eggshell Skull (2018) — Bri Lee
111 — Bruny (2019) — Heather Rose
112 — Any Ordinary Day (2018) — Leigh Sales
113 — No Friend But the Mountains (2018) — Behrouz Boochani
114 — The Season (2024) — Helen Garner
115 — Who Sank the Boat? (1982) — Pamela Allen
116 — Bridge of Clay (2018) — Markus Zusak
117 — The Riders (1994) — Tim Winton
118 — Romulus My Father (1998) — Raimond Gaita
119 — Banjo Paterson's Bush Ballads (2007) — A.B. Banjo Paterson
120 — On the Beach (1957) — Nevil Shute
121 — Wake in Fright (1961) — Kenneth Cook
122 — The Transit of Venus (1980) — Shirley Hazzard
123 — The Complete Adventures of Blinky Bill (1939) — Dorothy Wall
124 — The Fortunes of Richard Mahony (1930) — Henry Handel Richardson
125 — All Our Shimmering Skies (2020) — Trent Dalton
126 — Obernewtyn (1987) — Isobelle Carmody
127 — An Imaginary Life (1978) — David Malouf
128 — Mary Poppins (1934) — P.L. Travers
129 — Death of a River Guide (1994) — Richard Flanagan
130 — Disgrace (1999) — J. M. Coetzee
131 — The Rúin (2018) — Dervla McTiernan
132 — Hating Alison Ashley (1984) — Robin Klein
133 — Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge (1984) — Mem Fox and Julie Vivas
134 — He Died with a Felafel in His Hand (1994) — John Birmingham
135 — Sorrow and Bliss (2020) — Meg Mason
136 — Gould's Book of Fish (2001) — Richard Flanagan
137 — Dusk (2024) — Robbie Arnott
138 — Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence (1996) — Doris Pilkington and Nugi Garimara
139 — Tell Me Why (1993) — Archie Roach
140 — Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray (2021) — Anita Heiss
141 — The Year of Living Dangerously (1978) — Christopher Koch
142 — Holding the Man (1995) — Timothy Conigrave
143 — How To End a Story: Collected Diaries (2021) — Helen Garner
144 — The Drover's Wife (1892) — Henry Lawson
145 — Journey to the Stone Country (2002) — Alex Miller
146 — Grand Days (1993) — Frank Moorhouse
147 — Grug (1979) — Ted Prior
148 — Ransom (2009) — David Malouf
149 — See What You Made Me Do (2019) — Jess Hill
150 — The Songlines (1987) — Bruce Chatwin
151 — The Merry-Go-Round in the Sea (1965) — Randolph Stow
152 — Memorial Days (2025) — Geraldine Brooks
153 — Tirra Lirra by the River (1978) — Jessica Anderson
154 — The First Stone (1995) — Helen Garner
155 — Rowan of Rin (1993) — Emily Rodda
156 — The White Girl (2019) — Tony Birch
157 — The Good People (2016) — Hannah Kent
158 — The Women in Black (1993) — Madeleine St John
159 — Bitter Wash Road (2013) — Garry Disher
160 — The CWA Cookery Book and Household Hints, 54th edition (1993) — CWA
161 — Once (2005) — Morris Gleitzman
162 — Nevermoor (2017) — Jessica Townsend
163 — Tracks (1980) — Robyn Davidson
164 — Poor Man's Orange (1949) — Ruth Park
165 — The Biggest Estate on Earth (2011) — Bill Gammage
166 — Australian Gospel (2024) — Lech Blaine
167 — The Wife and the Widow (2019) — Christian White
168 — Praise (1992) — Andrew McGahan
169 — The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1972) — Thomas Keneally
170 — Illywhacker (1985) — Peter Carey
171 — Migrations (2020) — Charlotte McConaghy
172 — The Barefoot Investor (2004) — Scott Pape
173 — Past the Shallows (2011) — Favel Parrett
174 — Blueback (1997) — Tim Winton
175 — Girt: The Unauthorised History of Australia (2013) — David Hunt
176 — Sabriel (1995) — Garth Nix
177 — The Unlikely Voyage of Jack de Crow (2002) — A.J. Mackinnon
178 — Barracuda (2013) — Christos Tsiolkas
179 — The Muddleheaded Wombat (1962) — Ruth Park
180 — Reckoning (2015) — Magda Szubanski
181 — Killing for Country (2023) — David Marr
182 — Fly Away Peter (1982) — David Malouf
183 — The Field Guide to the Birds of Australia (2010) — Nicolas Day and Ken Simpson
184 — A Fraction of the Whole (2008) — Steve Toltz
185 — The Lost Thing (2000) — Shaun Tan
186 — The Tea Ladies (2023) — Amanda Hampson
187 — The Getting of Wisdom (1910) — Henry Handel Richardson
188 — Flames (2018) — Robbie Arnott
189 — Bodies of Light (2021) — Jennifer Down
190 — Love and Virtue (2021) — Diana Reid
191 — The Weekend (2019) — Charlotte Wood
192 — The Will of the Many (2023) — James Islington
193 — Homecoming (2023) — Kate Morton
194 — The Lucky Country (1964) — Donald Horne
195 — Capricornia (1938) — Xavier Herbert
196 — Ten Steps to Nanette (2022) — Hannah Gadsby
197 — Poor Fellow My Country (1975) — Xavier Herbert
198 — Discipline (2025) — Randa Abdel-Fattah
199 — The Nowhere Child (2018) — Christian White
200 — Cocaine Blues (1989) — Kerry Greenwood

On this special edition of The Bookshelf, ahead of the Top 100 Australian Books Countdown, Kate Evans speaks with historian Professor Martyn Lyons about the history of reading in Australia and what our reading lives can reveal about the nation. Plus, crime fiction expert Sue Turnbull traces the evolution of Australian crime writing before sharing three books she loves. Singer-songwriter Fanny Lumsden and artist-performer Maeve Marsden also reveal their top three Australian reads. And in the podcast edition, music journalist Stuart Coupe joins us with three Australian books he can't live without.
Guests
Martin Lyons – Emeritus Professor of History and European Studies in the School of Humanities and Languages at UNSW
Sue Turnbull – Honorary Professor of Communication and Media at the University of Wollongong, with expertise in crime fiction, television and popular culture
Maeve Marsden – Theatre maker, performer and Creative Director of Varuna, the National Writers' House in the NSW Blue Mountains
Fanny Lumsden – ARIA Award-winning country singer-songwriter whose fifth studio album, Traditions, is due for release on 30 October
Stuart Coupe – Australian music journalist, author, band manager, promoter, publicist and record label founder
Books mentioned and Guest Recommendations
Literary Foundations
Martyn Lyons, The Uses of Literacy in Colonial Australia
Jane Austen, works
Walter Scott, works
Henry Kendall, poetic works
Adam Lindsay Gordon, poetic works
A B ‘Banjo’ Paterson, works
Henry Lawson, works
Charles Dickens, works
Classic Australian Fiction 
Rolf Boldrewood, Robbery Under Arms
Eleanor Dark, The Timeless Land
Miles Franklin, My Brilliant Career
Crime & Mystery
Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes stories
Fergus Hume, The Mystery of a Hansom Cab
Lucy Sussex, Blockbuster!
Peter Corris, The Empty Beach
Marele Day, The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender
Sharon Kernot, Night Swimming
Dorothy Porter, The Monkey’s Mask
Peter Temple, The Broken Shore
Garry Disher, Bitter Wash Road
Jane Harper, The Dry
Peter Corris, The Dying Trade
Contemporary Fiction 
Geraldine Brooks, Horse
Pip Williams, The Dictionary of Lost Words, The Bookbinder of Jericho
Helen Garner, Monkey Grip
Eda Gunaydin, Root and Branch
Evelyn Araluen, The Rot
Jane Harrison, The Visitors
Jessie Tu, A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous thing
Children's Literature
Alison Lester, Kissed by the Moon
Music, Culture & Memoir
Colin Talbot’s Greatest Hits
Garrie Hutchinson, From the Outer
Renee Geyer, Confessions of a Difficult Woman
Stuart Coupe and Toby Creswell, Sounds Like Teen Spirit: The Anarchic Unauthorised Story of Triple J & Double J

Kate and Cassie are joined by rockstar Tim Rogers and novelist Madeleine Gray to discuss some big new releases.
Australian crime heavyweight Chris Hammer swaps the outback for the world of high finance in Full Circle, a thriller of money, power and corruption. Then there's Jem Calder's I Want You to Be Happy, a zeitgeisty portrait of young Londoners searching for connection in an increasingly disconnected world; and Pip Williams' The German Wife, her eagerly anticipated follow-up to The Dictionary of Lost Words and The Bookbinder of Jericho, a sweeping World War I story of forbidden love and art.
Plus, as Radio National's Top 100 Australian Books countdown draws closer, novelist, essayist and art critic Fiona Kelly McGregor discusses three Australian books that have had an impact on her life and writing. 
FEATURED BOOKS
Full Circle by Chris Hammer, Summit Books
I Want You to be Happy by Jem Calder, Faber
The German Ward by Pip Williams,  Affirm Press 
FIONA KELLY MCGREGOR'S TOP 3 AUSTRALIAN BOOKS
Working Hot by Mary Fallon
The Other Side of the Frontier: Aboriginal Resistance to the European Invasion of Australia by Henry Reynolds
Voss by Patrick White
OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED
Famesick by Lena Dunham
The Book of George by Kate Greathead
Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte
Lean Cat, Savage Cat by Lauren J. Joseph
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
Happy Hour by Marlowe Granados
Johnno by David Malouf
Night Boat to Tangier, Beatlebone by Kevin Barry
A Suitable Man by Jock Serong

This week, Kate and Cassie are joined by regulars Hannah Kent and Tom Wright to discuss three books that echo one another across themes of art, beauty, family and transformation.
In Barbara Kingsolver's Partita, a young woman longs to escape her small town and difficult mother through music (and there are dogs and an accident); Ayad Akhtar's The Radiance follows a man whose vivid, radiant life is shaped by music and ambition (and there’s a terrible accident); And in Colm Tóibín's The Bridge, a son and father navigate change, possibility and belonging in a new world (accompanied by a whole pack of dogs).
Plus, voting may have closed for The Bookshelf's Top 100 Australian Books, but we're still taking inspiration from readers' recommendations. Actor, writer and trans activist Zoe Terakes joins us to share their three favourite Australian books.
Featured books
Barbara Kingsolver, Partita, Faber
Colm Toíbín, The Bridge, Picador
Ayad Akhtar, The Radiance, Summit
Zoe Terakes' Top 3
Christos Tsiolkas , Loaded
Chelsea Watego, Another Day in the Colony
Timothy Conigrave, Holding the Man 
Other Books mentioned
Stephanie Alexander, The Cook's Companion
Alison Lester, Magic Beach
Shirley Hazzard, The Great Fire
Hannah Moloney, The Good Life: How To Grow A Better World
Christina Stead, Seven Poor Men of Sydney

In American Hagwon, the bestselling author of Pachinko, Min Jin Lee, explores family, education, ambition and the long shadow of economic upheaval, set between Seoul, Sydney and California. Louise Kennedy's Stations offers a tough and deeply felt Irish family story, while Catherine Chidgey's The Starving Bride turns hunger into a strange gothic performance. Kate and Cassie are joined this time by regulars, novelist and academic Professor Tony Birch and critic and literary judge Beejay Silcox. And, as we count down to the Top 100 Australian Books, Frank Moorhouse's biographer Matthew Lamb reveals his top three.
Books featured
Min Jin Lee, American Hagwon, Fourth Estate
Louise Kennedy, Stations, Bloomsbury Circus
Catherine Chidgey, The Starving Bride, Penguin 
Matthew Lamb's Top 100 picks
Forty-Seventeen (1988) by Frank Moorhouse
Tourmaline (1963) by Randolph Stow
Writer Reader Critic (1992) by Dorothy Green 
Other books mentioned
Janet McCalman, Struggletown
Peter Carey, The Fat Man in History
The Women's Weekly Birthday Cake Book
Leonie Norrington, Djawundil Maymuru, Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs and Djawa Burarrwanga, A Piece of Red Cloth
Gretchen Shirm, Out of the Woods
Colleen McCullough, The Thorn Birds