The Man Booker Prize is a literary prize which is awarded by the Booker Prize Foundation. The prize is now sponsored by the Man Group, an alternative investment management group in Great Britain. The Man Booker Prize for fiction has been awarded each year since 1969 to an author from the British Commonwealth.

Breath (series) by Tim Winton (2008) FIC WIN
Two Western Australian teenage boys become involved with a thrill-seeking extreme-sports surfer who is an aging hippie-guru, and discover that the dangers encountered with him extend to areas beyond those of high-risk surfing. Other books by Winton include The Turning (2004), and Blueback: A Contemporary Fable (1997), as well as The Riders, short-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 1995 (set in Ireland), Dirt Music (2002), short-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2002, and Cloudstreet (1992).

The Dairy Queen by Allison Rushby (2006) FIC RUS
The author of “It’s Not You, It’s Me” writes this “chick-lit” novel about Dicey, a newly-penniless divorcee, who is forced to return to her cow-obsessed hometown in Australia with her Irish Wolfhound. A previous book by this author is Friday Night Cocktails (2004).

Billy Budd by Herman Melville FIC MEL
This novel is about a British sailor who accidentally kills a man who accuses him of mutiny. He is court-martialed and executed, though he is innocent of the charge.

Dangerous Games by Keri Arthur (2007) FIC ART
This book is the third in a series of paranormal romances, an urban fantasy about a young woman who is half-werewolf and half-vampire who tries to stop the creation of a cross-bred warrior force. The series is set in Melbourne, Australia. The first book in the series is Full Moon Rising (2006), followed by Kissing Sin (2007).

Dark Roots by Cate Kennedy (2006) FIC KEN
This book is a collection of psychological short stories concerning women’s roles in various social arenas in which the women grapple with the male ego, and in the conflict between these women’s views of themselves and the way they are viewed by others. They are set in unnamed locales in Australia. This book might be an excellent book club book. Discussion questions are included.

Elizabeth Costello by J. M. Coetzee (2003) FIC COE
This book is about an aging Australian novelist who is best known for an early feminist work based on James Joyce’s Molly Bloom (a character in Ulysses). Invited to the U.S. to accept a literary prize and to give a series of lectures at various universities, she reveals her life story through a formal address at a university in Pennsylvania, other lectures, and in literary discussions as part of a guest entertainment package during a cruise voyage to Antarctica. This novel was short-listed for the Man Booker prize in 2003. Coetzee has received the Man Booker for two other novels, Disgrace (1999) and The Life and Times of Michael K (1983), which are set in South Africa.

Family Baggage by Monica McInerney (2006) FIC MCI
Harriet unexpectedly finds herself the sole travel agent in charge of a busload of senior citizens on an overseas tour. As she leads 12 tourists through the Cornwall countryside, she has flashbacks about her family and childhood in Australia and deals with some mysteries in her family’s past. If you like this book you may also like her previous book The Alphabet Sisters (2004).

Pride of the Peacock (1976) by Victoria Holt FIC HOL
Pride of the Peacock and The Black Opal (1993) are two mystery novels by Victoria Holt which involve the opal, for which Australia is the source of the highest quality of this semiprecious stone.

The Lucifer Cypher by J. E. Fender FIC FEN
Geoffrey Frost is an American sea captain who is experienced in the China Trade. He is involved as a privateer with the American struggle for independence at sea following the American Revolution.

A River Town (1995) by Thomas Keneally FIC KEN
Tim Shea emigrates from Ireland to Australia to escape British-controlled repression and finds that his new home has a prejudicial atmosphere and rigid social class order. It is set in a small town in the Australian Outback. Keneally has also written about Australia in: Office of Innocence (2002), Tim (1974) (not owned by FCPL), and Woman of the Inner Sea (1993).

The Thorn Birds(1977) by Colleen McCullough FIC MCC
This is an epic multigenerational family novel which spans the period 1915-1969. It is set on a sheep ranch in Australia. It concerns the child Meggie and an ambitious priest who guides her to adulthood and ultimately becomes romantically obsessed with her. More recent books by McCullough about Australia are An Indecent Obsession (1981), Morgan’s Run (2000), and The Touch (2003).

Remembering Babylon (1993) by David Malouf FIC MAL
A white child who has been shipwrecked is adopted by a tribe of Aborigines in the 19th century in Australia. This novel explores the racial prejudices of 19th century Australian society. This book was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 1993. Other books by this Australian author are Fly Away Peter (1998), Dream Stuff: Stories (2000), and Conversations at Carlow Creek (1996).

Sea Trilogy by William Golding FIC GOL
This three-volume series deals with subject matter which is quite different from that of Golding’s other novels. It is about a sea voyage by a young man from England to New Zealand in the 19th century.
Volume 1, Rites of Passage (1980), won the Man Booker prize in 1980.
Volume 2, Close Quarters (1987), concerns Australia.
Volume 3, Fire Down Below (1989), is the sequel to Volume 2.
All three volumes can be found in one book: To The Ends of the Earth.

A Town Like Alice (1990) by Nevil Shute FIC SHU
This book is a war romance about an Australian soldier who was a World War II prisoner of war who risks his life to help a Japanese woman who was also a prisoner of war, surviving a “death march." The book was later made into a movie. (The original title of this book is The Legacy.) You may know this author from a previous book titled On the Beach (1957), the basis for the movie of the same name about the inhabitants of a small Australian town who await the eventual effects of a nuclear holocaust in the Northern Hemisphere.

True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey FIC CAR
Ned Kelly is a 19th century Australian folk hero who was the head of a gang of outlaws which led the authorities on a merry chase for 20 months. This historical novel is written in the form of letters to his daughter, whom he will never meet. It won the Man Booker Prize in 2001. Carey also won the Man Booker Prize in 1988 for Oscar and Lucinda (1988), which was among the five shortlisted “Best of the Booker” titles in 2008.

Windflowers (2002) by Tamara McKinley FIC MCK
Claire returns from Sydney to her hometown in the Australian Outback in this novel about several generations of a family of ranchers in the years 1936-1970. It concerns family secrets and old family conflicts. Descriptions of the Outback landscape and love of country are perhaps stronger than the character development and plot.