ReadingRate · Best Books · 2026

The 76 best books from Australia

The 76 best books from Australia, ranked by literary regard. Difficulty and reading-time estimates where measured.

These 76 books are the highest-scoring eligible works currently in the catalogue for this selection; the eligible pool is smaller than the list limit. Ranked by literary regard, Australian writing is led by Patrick White's Voss, Christina Stead's The Man Who Loved Children, Thomas Keneally's Schindler's Ark and Peter Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang. White, the country's Nobel laureate, holds seven of the top twenty places on his own, and this list ranks the best Australian works in ReadingRate's catalogue with a difficulty score for each.

These 76 books are the highest-scoring eligible works currently in the catalogue for this selection; the eligible pool is smaller than the list limit. This is a computed ranking ordered by literary regard, with a consistent order for equal scores. Membership follows authors and co-authors, not translators or editors. Catalogue coverage and the historical canon both limit what this list can represent.

About 614 hours for 76 of 76 books with measured lengths. Estimates use a 250-word-per-minute baseline adjusted for each book's difficulty. At two hours a day, about 308 days for those books.

1–10

  1. Voss by Patrick White (1957, difficulty 6.8/10, 13 hours)
  2. Patrick White: A Life by David Marr (1991, difficulty 4.5/10, 12 hours)
  3. The Conscious Mind by David J. Chalmers (1996, difficulty 6.4/10, 13 hours)
  4. The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead (1940, difficulty 5.7/10, 12 hours)
  5. The Oxford Literary History of Australia by Bruce Bennett (1998, difficulty 6.5/10, 10 hours)
  6. The Penguin New Literary History of Australia by Laurie Hergenhan (1988, difficulty 6.8/10, 9.7 hours)
  7. A History of Australian Literature by Leonie Kramer (1981, difficulty 5.7/10, 6.3 hours)
  8. Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally (1982, difficulty 5.3/10, 9.1 hours)
  9. The Vivisector by Patrick White (1970, difficulty 6.7/10, 17 hours)
  10. The Eye of the Storm by Patrick White (1973, difficulty 6.2/10, 15 hours)

11–20

  1. The Aunt's Story by Patrick White (1948, difficulty 7.5/10, 8.8 hours)
  2. The Solid Mandala by Patrick White (1966, difficulty 7.1/10, 8.2 hours)
  3. Form and Ideology in Crime Fiction by Stephen Knight (1980, difficulty 6.2/10, 5.3 hours)
  4. Riders in the Chariot by Patrick White (1961, difficulty 7.2/10, 16 hours)
  5. True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey (2001, difficulty 5.9/10, 9.4 hours)
  6. The Twyborn Affair by Patrick White (1979, difficulty 7.4/10, 12 hours)
  7. Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey (1988, difficulty 7.2/10, 15 hours)
  8. Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others by Sara Ahmed (2006, difficulty 7.0/10, 5.2 hours)
  9. A Fringe of Leaves by Patrick White (1976, difficulty 7.6/10, 12 hours)
  10. Carpentaria by Alexis Wright (2006, difficulty 6.8/10, 15 hours)

21–30

  1. The Secret River by Kate Grenville (2006, difficulty 6.7/10, 8.9 hours)
  2. A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute (1950, difficulty 2.3/10, 5 hours)
  3. Burial Rites by Hannah Kent (2014, difficulty 5.0/10, 5.6 hours)
  4. Gossip from the Forest by Thomas Keneally (1975, difficulty 5.2/10, 3.7 hours)
  5. Living a Feminist Life by Sara Ahmed (2017, difficulty 4.3/10, 8.5 hours)
  6. The Riders by Tim Winton (1995, difficulty 5.7/10, 6.7 hours)
  7. Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood (2024, difficulty 5.6/10, 5.6 hours)
  8. Theft: A Love Story by Peter Carey (2006, difficulty 5.9/10, 4.8 hours)
  9. March by Geraldine Brooks (2006, difficulty 7.1/10, 8.2 hours)
  10. Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville (2024, difficulty 5.3/10, 3.6 hours)

31–40

  1. That Deadman Dance by Kim Scott (2010, difficulty 3.6/10, 4.7 hours)
  2. A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz (2008, difficulty 5.1/10, 8.9 hours)
  3. Singing My Sister Down by Margo Lanagan (2001, difficulty 5.4/10, 3 hours)
  4. Illywhacker by Peter Carey (1985, difficulty 6.1/10, 18 hours)
  5. The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough (1977, difficulty 2.8/10, 10 hours)
  6. She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan (2021, difficulty 4.3/10, 6.9 hours)
  7. The Tree of Man by Patrick White (1955, difficulty 6.3/10, 17 hours)
  8. Bliss by Peter Carey (1981, difficulty 5.4/10, 7.4 hours)
  9. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (2005, difficulty 3.1/10, 6.4 hours)
  10. The Lost Dog by Michelle de Kretser (2008, difficulty 5.6/10, 5.6 hours)

41–50

  1. Confederates by Thomas Keneally (1979, difficulty 4.9/10, 7.1 hours)
  2. Sixty Lights by Gail Jones (2004, difficulty 5.8/10, 4.6 hours)
  3. Carry Me Down by M.J. Hyland (2006, difficulty 4.7/10, 5.6 hours)
  4. The Writing of the Australian Male by Robert Dixon (1986, difficulty 5.9/10, 5.9 hours)
  5. The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith by Thomas Keneally (1972, difficulty 6.9/10, 4.9 hours)
  6. Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey (2010, difficulty 7.7/10, 12 hours)
  7. The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan (2014, difficulty 5.7/10, 8.5 hours)
  8. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures by Bill Ashcroft (1989, difficulty 4.6/10, 6.2 hours)
  9. The Essence of the Thing by Madeleine St John (1997, difficulty 5.2/10, 4 hours)
  10. Dirt Music by Tim Winton (2002, difficulty 6.7/10, 8.1 hours)

51–60

  1. Remembering Babylon by David Malouf (1993, difficulty 6.1/10, 4.6 hours)
  2. The Hating Game by Sally Thorne (2016, difficulty 1.9/10, 3.7 hours)
  3. Scary Monsters by Michelle de Kretser (2022, difficulty 5.7/10, 4.9 hours)
  4. Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith (2016, difficulty 2.8/10, 3.4 hours)
  5. Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre (2003, difficulty 5.9/10, 6.2 hours)
  6. Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty (2024, difficulty 4.0/10, 8.3 hours)
  7. The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville (2001, difficulty 6.5/10, 8.5 hours)
  8. Raving by McKenzie Wark (1993, difficulty 5.6/10, 2.8 hours)
  9. The Dry by Jane Harper (2016, difficulty 3.5/10, 4.9 hours)
  10. The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber (2014, difficulty 5.4/10, 11 hours)

61–70

  1. Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser (2024, difficulty 6.3/10, 4 hours)
  2. Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty (2014, difficulty 4.4/10, 8.5 hours)
  3. The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas (2010, difficulty 6.9/10, 13 hours)
  4. Captive Prince by C.S. Pacat (2013, difficulty 4.6/10, 4.6 hours)
  5. A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske (2021, difficulty 4.1/10, 6.6 hours)
  6. The Strength of the Few by James Islington (2025, difficulty 4.3/10, 16 hours)
  7. A Power Unbound by Freya Marske (2023, difficulty 4.1/10, 6.2 hours)
  8. The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris (2018, difficulty 2.9/10, 4.1 hours)
  9. Sabriel by Garth Nix (1995, difficulty 3.2/10, 5 hours)
  10. If This Gets Out by Sophie Gonzales (2021, difficulty 3.3/10, 5.6 hours)

71–76

  1. The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion (2013, difficulty 1.8/10, 3.3 hours)
  2. The Will of the Many (Hierarchy, #1) by James Islington (2023, difficulty 5.4/10, 14 hours)
  3. The Prison Healer by Lynette Noni (2022, difficulty 3.3/10, 5.8 hours)
  4. The Blood Traitor by Lynette Noni (2023, difficulty 2.8/10, 6.7 hours)
  5. The Gilded Cage by Lynette Noni (2021, difficulty 3.7/10, 7.1 hours)
  6. 99 Percent Mine by Sally Thorne (2019, difficulty 1.5/10, 3.6 hours)

Questions people actually ask

What are the best Australian books?
By literary regard: Voss, The Man Who Loved Children, Schindler's Ark, The Vivisector and True History of the Kelly Gang lead, with Oscar and Lucinda, The Secret River and Carpentaria close behind. ReadingRate ranks them with difficulty data for each.
Where should I start with Patrick White?
Voss. It ranks highest of his novels and scores 68 for difficulty — demanding, but the most approachable of his major work. The Aunt's Story and A Fringe of Leaves rank nearly as high and read considerably harder.
What is the most readable book on this list?
Nevil Shute's A Town Like Alice, which holds real literary regard at a difficulty score of 23 — the lowest of any highly ranked Australian book, and lower than almost anything on the site.
Which Australian books won the Booker Prize?
Schindler's Ark, Oscar and Lucinda and True History of the Kelly Gang all won it, giving Thomas Keneally one and Peter Carey two. All three appear high on this list.