Suggested readings
Here's our recommended reading lists
First Nations Books
By on
That Deadman Dance, By Kim Scott
“It is a great book because it makes from an impossible situation a possible way forward. This is a moral achievement as much as it is an aesthetic or literary one. It’s what we demand from our greatest writers. It’s what history has demanded of Kim Scott.”
Winner for Miles Franklin Literary Award 2011.
Winner for ALS Gold Medal 2011.
Winner for Western Australian Premier's Book Award Western Australian Premier's Prize 2010.
Winner for Western Australian Premier's Book Award Award for Fiction 2010.
Winner for Victorian Premier's Literary Award Victorian Prize for Literature 2011.
Winner for Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Fiction 2011.
Winner for Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature Premier's Award 2012.
Winner for Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature Fiction Award 2012.
Winner for Commonwealth Writers Prize Best Book 2011.
Winner for Kate Challis RAKA Award 2011.
"Scott's book is stunning - haunted and powerful ... Verdict: Must Read" Herald Sun
Long-listed for Dublin Literary Award 2019.
Long-listed for ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year 2018.
Long-listed for Indie Book Awards Fiction 2018.
Short-listed for Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Fiction 2018.
Short-listed for Prime Minister's Literary Awards Fiction 2018.
Short-listed for Miles Franklin Literary Award 2018.
"Kirli Saunders’ debut collection Kindred offers a sequence of poems that shift seamlessly between the concrete and country, the tangible and the spiritual - and, like the best poems, they bare us to moments we’re often too busy, too distracted to notice."
– Madelaine Dickie, National Indigenous Times
Shortlisted for the ABIA 2020 Book Awards
FAB Booktopia Awards
Carpentaria , By Alexis Wright
"Despite highly laudatory reviews, Wright’s 500-plus-page tale of the tortured relations between blacks and whites in the sparsely populated desert country around the Gulf of Carpentaria in northern Queensland languished on bookstore shelves."
The New York Times
Winner of the 2007 Miles Franklin Literary Award
Dark Emu, By Bruce Pascoe and Young Dark Emu
"This is the most important book on Australia and should be read by every Australian."
– Marcia Langton, The Australian
Winner – Book of the Year in the 2016 NSW Premier's Literary Awards
Winner – Indigenous Writer's Prize in the 2016 NSW Premier's Literary Awards
Shortlisted – History Book Award in the 2014 Queensland Literary Awards
Shortlisted – 2014 Victorian Premier's Award for Indigenous Writing
"Take courage when you read this book. You'll need it. Winch asks big questions of this country. Is the answer within us?"
Bruce Pascoe
WINNER OF THE 2020 MILES FRANKLIN LITERARY AWARD
WINNER OF THE 2020 NSW PREMIER’S LITERARY AWARDS CHRISTINA STEAD PRIZE FOR FICTION
WINNER OF THE 2020 NSW PREMIER’S LITERARY AWARDS PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD
WINNER OF THE 2020 NSW PREMIER’S LITERARY AWARDS BOOK OF THE YEAR
My Girragundji, By Boori Monty Pryor and Meme McDonald
Winner 1999 Children’s Book Council Book of the Year for Younger Readers
Shortlisted 1999 QLD Premier’s Literary Awards for Best Children’s Book
Winner of the 2020 NSW Premier’s Prize for Indigenous Writing
Too Much Lip, By Melissa Lucashenko
Winner of the 2019 Miles Franklin Award
Shortlisted for the 2019 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Prize for Indigenous Writing
Talking To My Country, By Stan Grant
'...an urgent and flowing narrative in a book that should be on the required reading list in every school' - The Australian
Winner of the 2016 Walkley Book Award
2016 Winner of the National Trust Heritage Award
Shortlisted for the 2016 NIB Waverley Library Award
2016 Queensland Literary Award
‘Fuller builds a frightening suspense throughout the book.’ CBCA Reading Time
Winner, 2020 Queensland Literary Awards, Griffith University Young Adult Book Award
Winner, 2020 The Readings Young Adult Book Prize
Joint Winner, The Norma K Hemming Award, Long form category
Winner, 2017 Queensland Literary Awards – Unpublished Indigenous Writer: David Unaipon Award
Shortlisted, 2020 CBCA Book of the Year Awards – Book of the Year: Older Readers
Shortlisted, 2019 Aurealis Awards - Best Young Adult Novel
Longlisted, 2020 Australian Book Design Awards
Cooee Mittigar, By Jasmine Seymour and Leanne Tobin
‘A beautiful and important bilingual book that is especially relevant for those living on or near Darug Country in the greater Sydney basin.’ –Good Reads
Shortlisted for the 2020 CBCA Award for New Illustrator
2020 CBCA Book of the Year Awards: Eve Pownall Award
"One of the most significant milestones in Aboriginal literature." Australian Magazine"
Winner 1987 Human Rights Award for Literature
Winner 1990 Order of Australia Book Prize
Shortlisted 1987 New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award
The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf, By Ambelin Kwaymullina
“If an ‘exhilarating dystopia’ strikes you as oxymoronic, this vivid, original debut just might change your mind.” — Kirkus Reviews
Cheeky Dogs: To Lake Nash and Back, By Johanna Bell and Dion Beasley
“Cheeky Dogs: To Lake Nash and Back transcends the picture book genre, much in the way that Shaun Tan’s work does. Beasley’s story also presents the rare point of view of a young person’s account of life in a remote community: we see Tennant Creek through his eyes, as someone who spends his days drawing, hanging out with his family, and feeding his favourite camp dogs.” – Books + Publishing
Longlisted Best Designed Children's Non-Fiction Illustrated Book
Australian Book Design Awards 2020
Terra Nullius, By Claire G. Coleman
Coleman makes a significant contribution to the emerging body of Aboriginal writers such as Ellen van Neerven and Alexis Wright who write spectral and speculative fiction to critique the vicious fiction of the colonial archive. - Canberra Times
Shortlisted for the Stella Prize 2018
Highly Commended in the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards 2017
Shortlisted for the ABIA Matt Richell Award for New Writers 2018
Shortlisted for the Aurealis Award for a Science Fiction Novel 2017
Longlisted for the Indie Book Award for Debut Fiction 2018
Nominated for Ditmar Award Best New Talent 2018
The Drover’s Wife, By Leah Purcell
“Full of fury and power, Leah Purcell’s The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson is a brave reimagining of the Henry Lawson short story that has become an Australian classic.” –Better Reading
Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting
Book of the Year at the NSW Premier's Literary Awards
Prize for Drama and the overall Victorian Prize for Literature at the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards.