Tim Winton's Cloudstreet wins Top 100 Australian Books countdown

The nation has spoken — Tim Winton's 1991 novel, Cloudstreet, is our favourite homegrown book.

Cloudstreet has been adapted for radio, theatre, opera and television. Thirty-five years after it was published, it has never been out of print.

Three other Winton novels made the list, with Breath (2008) coming in at #33, Dirt Music (2001) at #41 and Juice (2024) at #88.

Winton, in the studio with Claire Nichols, says it's nice to have a book that's been around the block recognised in this way. "It's something I wrote when I was in my 20s. I'm not ashamed to have written it, but I can't quite make out what the fuss is about. I don't go back and read it. But I'm quite aware of the place it has in some people's hearts because they write to me about it still … It's a mystery."

Markus Zusak is #2 for second year running. Zusak has just learned on air that The Book Thief has once again been voted number two in the Top 100 poll. The Book Thief was, of course, #2 in the Top 100 Books of the 21st Century last year. He said he feels like the perpetual bridesmaid — but he's happy about it.

"The Book Thief is like my older, more successful sibling … that drags me around behind it. It's been this magic ride where I've got to go all around the world, but its home is here. It's a story set in an entirely other place and time, but it was born and raised in Australia. People have made it part of their lives, and you can't ask for more than that."

Boy Swallows Universe goes top three. We knew it had to be somewhere near the top — Trent Dalton's Boy Swallows Universe has come in at #3. It's another incredible showing from the Brisbane writer's beloved debut, which topped last year's poll. His latest novel, Lola in the Mirror, was #35.

And he's live on air: "It's the deepest, most gratifying, most humbling, most beautiful thing in my entire existence. I just thank every person who cares about that book because it's a family story."

Hannah Kent: 'No-one's going to read that'. Kent was a 17-year-old exchange student in Iceland when she first encountered the story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir. Speaking on air now with Claire Nichols, she reflects on that teenage obsession: "I never thought I would write a book about it … but this story haunted me for many years and the process of writing it was also one that changed me as a person and as a writer."

She says when she told people she was writing a book about the last woman to be executed in Iceland, she was often met with scepticism. "I remember someone once telling me: 'No-one's going to want to read that — it sounds so bleak and so sad.'"

Well, turns out they were very wrong! The book has come in at #4 in the Top 100 Australian Books and #6 in the Top 100 Books of the 21st Century in 2025.

$114,000 raised for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation! This is INCREDIBLE! Just a reminder: The Radio National fundraising goal today was $10,000, which means we've raised 11x more than that! And we still have 25 minutes to go!

A bestselling autobiography. A Fortunate Life was a bestseller when it was published in 1981 and was later adapted into a TV mini-series in 1986. Its author, AB Facey, died just nine months after it was published, aged 87. The book recounts his hardscrabble childhood growing up at the turn of the century and his experience in Gallipoli during World War I.

Another childhood favourite. John Marsden was a titan of young adult literature in Australia, publishing more than 40 books in his career. When he died in 2024, aged 74, the ABC Arts team cherrypicked a handful of Marsden titles that moved them most as young readers. Tomorrow When the War Began was my pick — and one of my votes for the Top 100 Australian Books. When Marsden set out to write Tomorrow, When the War Began — the first instalment of what would become his seven-part Tomorrow series — he reportedly wanted to show that young people had the same capacity for grit and resilience that previous generations showed when they were called up to war. In this, he was successful. The first Tomorrow book, published in 1993, is an adventure story that presents teenagers as independent, courageous and capable in the face of crisis.