TOP 100 AUSTRALIAN BOOKS

18 October 2026

I knew that at least 5 of my Top 10 Australian books submitted to Radio National’s competition wouldn’t be in the Top 100 because they weren’t on the inspiration list to start with. I suspect Susan was the only other person who voted for Elyne Mitchell’s Silver Brumby, a beloved book from our childhood. But that childhood is now so long ago that I didn’t even remember how to spell the author’s name correctly. Others that weren’t going to make it included a book of images of the woodcut prints by Cressida Campbell. Some cooking books turned up in the Top 100 including one of Susan’s votes (the Stephanie Alexander Cookbook)  but not art books. 

It was hard to put together such a short list. After all, which Anna Funder book deserved a gig – Wifedom or Stasiland? Both made it into the Top 100 along with All that I Am. I could have put Robert Hughes The Fatal Shore on but instead I chose two other history books, David Hunt’s witty Girt and Alan Moorhead’s older The Fatal Impact. As for fiction, I could have chosen a Helen Garner or a Peter Temple or a Jane Harper or a Hannah Kent or Pip Williams (but never a Patrick White) but I didn’t. Of the 100 books, I’ve only read 53 although if you count as “read” the three cookbooks that ended up on the list which I’ve looked at even if I haven’t used them, that would take me up to 56 books.

It was amusing to hear the winner, Tim Winton, being somewhat embarrassed about a book he’d written twenty five years ago and the runner-up, Marcus Zusak being somewhat irritated to have come second again, and then the overly enthusiastic Trent Dalton who was probably wondering how he come in 3^rd in a list of the Best Australian Books of All Time but 1^st in last year’s 100 Best Books of the first quarter of this century. The on-air countdown over the weekend was entertaining with people listening as they brushed their dog or kayaked or embroidered. A great experience to bring people together.