The Books canon

Sourced and shelved.

Every book chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 1,178 books or filter by subject, era, place, and author.

Voss

1957 · 464 pages

In 1845 a German explorer attempts to cross Australia, bound across the desert to a woman in Sydney he barely knows. It took the inaugural Miles Franklin Award, Australia's foremost literary prize.

★ 6.6

The Fatal Shore

1986 · 628 pages

Britain shipped 160,000 convicts to Australia between 1787 and 1868. Hughes takes you down into the floggings and the Norfolk Island cells, and out again into the nation they made there.

★ 5.8