Boy Swallows Universe
A Brisbane boy negotiates crime, family upheaval and the hope of finding a different future.
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ABC Radio National: Listeners' Top 100 Books of the 21st Century (2025)
A reading list chosen by ABC Radio National listeners in the 2025 Top 100 Books countdown, covering fiction and non-fiction.
Showing 100 of 100 books
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The Book Thief
A girl in Nazi Germany discovers the sustaining power of books amid persecution, war and the dangers faced by her household.
Available nowEditions of The Book Thief
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Book Thief The - Markus Zusak - Folio Society - 2024View edition
A Gentleman in Moscow
An aristocrat sentenced to remain inside a Moscow hotel builds an unexpected life as Soviet history unfolds beyond its doors.
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All The Light We Cannot See
A blind French girl and a German boy's wartime paths converge in a story about survival, knowledge and human connection.
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Lessons in Chemistry
A scientist's unexpected television career challenges restrictive assumptions about women's work, intelligence and independence in 1960s America.
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Burial Rites
A condemned woman's final months in rural Iceland become a contested story of love, judgement and the limits of official history.
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The Dictionary of Lost Words
A girl growing up around the Oxford English Dictionary discovers how women's experiences can be excluded from the words a society records.
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Demon Copperhead
A boy's coming of age in Appalachia recasts David Copperfield amid poverty, foster care and the opioid crisis.
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A Little Life
Four friends build adult lives in New York, while one man's traumatic past tests the limits of care and friendship.
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Wolf Hall
Thomas Cromwell navigates Henry VIII's court as political ambition, religious change and royal desire reshape Tudor England.
Available nowEditions of Wolf Hall
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Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel - Folio Society - 2022 1st EditionView edition
Small Things Like These
An Irish coal merchant's encounter with a convent forces him to choose between social acceptance and an act of conscience.
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Where the Crawdads Sing
An isolated girl's life in the North Carolina marshes becomes entangled with a community's suspicions and a murder investigation.
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The Narrow Road to the Deep North
An Australian doctor's memories of a prisoner-of-war camp expose the enduring consequences of brutality, love and survival.
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Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
A solitary woman's carefully regulated routine begins to change through unexpected friendship and a confrontation with her past.
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Year of Wonders
A village's response to the plague tests its inhabitants' faith, solidarity and understanding of their neighbours.
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Still Life
A wartime encounter in Italy begins a story of friendship, chosen family and the unexpected routes by which people find a home.
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Wifedom
A reconstruction of Eileen O'Shaughnessy's life questions how the work of a wife can disappear behind a celebrated husband's biography.
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Dark Emu
An argument for reconsidering Aboriginal agriculture and settlement challenges familiar accounts of Australia's precolonial past.
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The Road
A father and son travel through a devastated landscape, trying to preserve both their lives and a sense of moral responsibility.
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The Secret River
A transported convict's pursuit of a new life on the Hawkesbury exposes the dispossession and violence underpinning colonial settlement.
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Atonement
A child's misinterpretation of events transforms several lives, raising questions about guilt and the power of storytelling to seek redress.
Previously soldEditions of Atonement
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Atonement - Ian McEwan - Folio Society - 2017 1st EditionView sold edition
The Kite Runner
A friendship between two Kabul boys becomes the starting point for a story of betrayal, exile and the search for atonement.
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Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Two friends make video games together, exploring the shifting boundaries between creative collaboration, ambition and intimate attachment.
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Jasper Jones
A teenager drawn into a local tragedy discovers the racism, secrets and divided loyalties within a Western Australian town.
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Honeybee
An unexpected encounter between two people in crisis begins a story of friendship, gender identity and the possibility of belonging.
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The Hunger Games
A teenager volunteers for a televised contest in which children are forced to fight for the entertainment of an authoritarian state.
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My Brilliant Friend
Two girls grow up in a poor Neapolitan neighbourhood, beginning a friendship shaped by rivalry, opportunity and the desire to escape.
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The Dry
A federal agent's return to his drought-stricken hometown draws him into a suspicious death and an unresolved event from his youth.
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Lola in the Mirror
An aspiring artist living on Brisbane's margins searches for safety and a future while her mother's past threatens their precarious life.
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Stasiland
Interviews with former East Germans reveal the intimate costs of surveillance, resistance and life under the Stasi.
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The Goldfinch
A boy's survival of a museum bombing leaves him bound to a stolen painting and the complicated aftermath of grief.
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Normal People
Two young Irish people repeatedly reconnect as class, insecurity and changing circumstances shape their relationship.
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Pachinko
Several generations of a Korean family negotiate migration, discrimination and survival in Japan.
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Never Let Me Go
Friends recall their secluded English childhood as the purpose of their upbringing gradually comes into focus.
Available nowEditions of Never Let Me Go
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Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro - Folio Society - 2012 1st EditionView edition
Olive Kitteridge
Linked stories reveal the tensions and unexpected intimacies of a Maine community through a difficult, perceptive former schoolteacher.
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The Thursday Murder Club
Four retirement-village residents turn their interest in unsolved crimes toward a murder close to home.
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The Slap
An adult's punishment of a child at a barbecue fractures friendships and exposes conflicting ideas about family and social responsibility.
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Breath
Two boys' involvement with an older surfer becomes an exploration of risk, desire and the dangerous allure of testing limits.
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Hamnet
A family living in Shakespeare's England experiences the illness and loss of a child, with particular attention to his mother's perspective.
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Dirt Music
An illicit relationship sends a damaged musician into Western Australia's remote north in a story of grief, desire and survival.
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Shuggie Bain
A Glasgow boy's devotion to his mother unfolds amid poverty, addiction and the search for acceptance.
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A Man Called Ove
A withdrawn widower's carefully ordered life is disrupted by neighbours whose needs draw him back into human connection.
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All That I Am
The intertwined lives of German anti-Nazi exiles reveal the risks of resistance and the fragility of personal trust.
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Limberlost
A Tasmanian boy's summer of trapping rabbits becomes an encounter with violence, tenderness and the consequences of his choices.
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The Time Traveler's Wife
A couple tries to sustain a relationship when one partner's involuntary time travel disrupts the sequence of their shared life.
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Horse
The history of a celebrated racehorse connects nineteenth-century slavery with modern investigations of art, science and racial injustice.
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Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry's fourth year at Hogwarts is transformed by a dangerous interschool tournament and signs of a growing threat.
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Life of Pi
A boy stranded at sea with a Bengal tiger tells a story that asks what it means to believe a survival narrative.
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A Thousand Splendid Suns
Two Afghan women's lives become intertwined through marriage, violence and changing political regimes.
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The Lovely Bones
A murdered girl's account of her family follows the effects of grief, suspicion and the slow struggle to continue living.
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The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
An ageing film star chooses an unexpected interviewer to tell the story behind her marriages, public image and private attachments.
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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
A journalist and a resourceful hacker investigate a decades-old disappearance within a powerful Swedish family.
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Prophet Song
A Dublin family's life contracts under an increasingly authoritarian state, revealing how political collapse enters the domestic world.
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The Rosie Project
A geneticist's methodical search for a partner is unsettled by a woman who fits none of his carefully chosen criteria.
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Girl, Woman, Other
Interconnected lives explore the relationships and histories of predominantly Black British women across generations and social worlds.
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The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
Botswana's first female private detective solves everyday mysteries through observation, local knowledge and an understanding of human motives.
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Sapiens
A broad account of human history examines how shared beliefs, agriculture, empires and science have transformed our species.
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James
A retelling of Huckleberry Finn centres Jim's intelligence and agency as he navigates slavery and the struggle for freedom.
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
A teenager's investigation into a neighbour's dog's death becomes a journey through family secrets and an unfamiliar world.
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The Song of Achilles
The relationship between Achilles and Patroclus becomes the centre of a retelling of the events leading to the Trojan War.
Available nowEditions of The Song of Achilles
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Song of Achilles, The - Madeline Miller - Folio Society - 2024View edition
Joe Cinque's Consolation
An account of a young man's death and the subsequent legal proceedings examines grief, responsibility and the limits of courtroom explanation.
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The Covenant of Water
A family's history in Kerala unfolds across generations under the shadow of a recurring vulnerability to water.
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We Need to Talk about Kevin
A mother revisits her son's upbringing after an act of mass violence, questioning memory, responsibility and the expectations placed on parenthood.
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Bel Canto
A hostage crisis draws captives and captors into unexpected relationships, with music creating a fragile shared world.
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Question 7
Memoir, family history and reflections on chance connect a writer's survival with wider histories of war, science and destruction.
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The Tattooist of Auschwitz
A historical novel follows a Jewish prisoner's work tattooing fellow captives at Auschwitz and a relationship formed under extreme persecution.
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Circe
The Greek enchantress recounts a life of exile and self-discovery, encountering gods and mortals while claiming authority over her own story.
Available nowEditions of Circe
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Circe - Madeline Miller - Folio Society - 2025View edition
Educated
A woman's journey from an isolated survivalist household to university examines education, family loyalty and the right to define experience.
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The Midnight Library
A woman enters a mysterious library whose books allow her to explore alternative versions of her life.
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Station Eleven
A travelling troupe performs after a devastating pandemic, connecting the remnants of civilisation with memories of the world before.
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The Bee Sting
Four members of an Irish family reveal the anxieties, secrets and misjudgements beneath their increasingly precarious circumstances.
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The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
An exchange of letters introduces a writer to Guernsey residents whose wartime reading group helped sustain their occupied community.
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The Happiest Man on Earth
A Holocaust survivor reflects on persecution, survival and the everyday commitments that helped him rebuild a life.
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The Overstory
The lives of several people become linked through trees, leading to a sustained examination of environmental destruction and resistance.
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The Happiest Refugee
A comedian recounts his family's escape from Vietnam and the hardships, resourcefulness and humour of building a life in Australia.
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Where is the Green Sheep?
Rhyming descriptions of busy, colourful sheep turn a search for one missing sheep into a playful picture-book journey.
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Life After Life
Repeated versions of one woman's life explore the consequences of chance, choice and the possibility of beginning again.
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The Women
A young nurse's service in Vietnam and return to America reveal the experiences of women often excluded from accounts of the war.
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Brooklyn
An Irish emigrant makes a new life in Brooklyn before a return home complicates her understanding of love and belonging.
Available nowEditions of Brooklyn
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Brooklyn - Colm Tóibín - Easton Press - 2016 Signed EditionView edition
A Short History of Nearly Everything
An accessible tour of scientific discovery follows questions about the universe, Earth's history and the emergence of life.
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Too Much Lip
A woman's return to her Queensland hometown draws her into family conflict and a struggle over land, memory and inherited harm.
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Carpentaria
Families in northern Australia contend with mining interests, racial hostility and competing claims to land in a novel grounded in Aboriginal knowledge.
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The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart
A girl's refuge at a flower farm opens onto stories of family violence, inherited secrets and the language of plants.
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Stone Yard Devotional
A woman retreats to a rural religious community, where unexpected arrivals disturb her attempts to withdraw from the world's demands.
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Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens
A Sydney nursing home becomes a meeting place for memories of migration, cultural belonging and disputes over whose histories deserve recognition.
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Cloud Atlas
Nested stories across centuries link exploitation, resistance and human connection, moving from a Pacific voyage to distant futures.
Available nowEditions of Cloud Atlas
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Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell - Easton Press - 2014 Signed EditionView edition
Fourth Wing
A physically vulnerable recruit enters a lethal military college, where bonding with a dragon may be her only route to survival.
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This House of Grief
Close observation of an Australian murder trial becomes a study of grief, doubt and the effort to understand another person's actions.
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People of the Book
The examination of a historic Jewish manuscript opens onto imagined lives connected by its journey through centuries of danger.
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This Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor
A former junior doctor uses diary entries to recount the exhausting, absurd and emotionally demanding realities of hospital work.
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The Bookbinder of Jericho
An Oxford bookbinder's ambitions for education and a different future unfold as the First World War transforms work and community.
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Gone Girl
A wife's disappearance draws her husband into a shifting investigation of marriage, performance and the stories people tell about themselves.
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Project Hail Mary
A scientist wakes alone on a spacecraft and must recover his memory while confronting a threat to life on Earth.
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Lincoln in the Bardo
Abraham Lincoln's grief for his son intersects with a chorus of unsettled spirits in an experimental account of loss and attachment.
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Piranesi
A solitary explorer records a seemingly endless house of halls and tides while clues begin to unsettle his understanding of its world.
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Tom Lake
A mother's recollections of a youthful romance become an occasion for her daughters to reconsider the life they thought they knew.
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True History of the Kelly Gang
An imagined autobiography gives Ned Kelly a distinctive voice in a retelling of the bushranger's life and colonial Australia's conflicts.
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The Heart's Invisible Furies
An Irish man's life across several decades explores sexuality, social prejudice and the search for love and acceptance.
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Middlesex
A narrator traces a Greek American family's history across generations while examining the inheritance and discovery of an intersex identity.
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Big Little Lies
The friendships and conflicts of mothers in a seaside community reveal hidden violence behind the routines of school and family life.
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