Cloudstreet, Tim Winton’s sprawling Australian family epic, has been voted Australia’s favourite book in a poll run by ABC Radio National.
The broadcaster announced over the weekend the results of a nationwide poll to determine a list of readers’ top ۱۰۰ Australian books.
Markus Zusak’s ۲۰۰۵ novel The Book Thief took second place, while Trent Dalton’s Boy Swallows Universe came in third.
First published in ۱۹۹۱, Cloudstreet follows two working-class Australian families, the Lambs and the Pickles, over their ۲۰ years living together in an old rambling house called Cloudstreet, in postwar Perth.
The story – Winton’s fifth novel and ninth book – won a swathe of awards upon publication, including the Miles Franklin in ۱۹۹۲, and has been a staple of Australian English literature classes for decades. It’s sold hundreds of thousands of copies in Australia alone.
Cloudstreet has topped previous polls on Australian books, including one by the Australian Society of Authors surveying writers on their favourites in ۲۰۰۳, and a subsequent poll run by the ABC the same year, surveying the public. Winton’s novel appeared in a ۲۰۱۹ BBC list of “۱۰۰ novels that shaped our world”.
The final top ۱۰۰ in this year’s ABC Radio National poll included adult fiction, nonfiction, young adult fiction, children’s picture books, history and cookbooks.
The Australian Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book made it into the top ۵۰ (at No ۲۲), while Stephanie Alexander’s The Cook’s Companion came in at number ۵۶. RecipeTin Eats: Dinner by Nagi Maehashi made the cut at ۹۶.
Authors Helen Garner, Melissa Lucashenko, Geraldine Brooks, Anna Funder, Peter Carey and Hannah Kent all had multiple books in Sunday’s top ۱۰۰. Books by children’s authors Alison Lester, Paul Jennings, Mem Fox, Jeannie Baker and Ruth Park appeared in the final ۱۰۰.
The earliest published work was For the Term of His Natural Life by Marcus Clarke from ۱۸۷۴ (No ۸۰). The most recent were Sally Hepworth’s Mad Mabel and Charlotte McConaghy’s Wild Dark Shore, both published in ۲۰۲۵.
Kate Evans, the host of ABC Radio National’s literary show The Bookshelf, said the list included “audacious literary fiction to historical accounts of who we’ve been and how we might understand all that complicated past, to joyful children’s books, Indigenous stories of both pain and humour, and many, many family stories”.
“This list defies any glib conclusions about how we read – and surely that’s the point,” Evans said.
