My Love Had a Black Speed Stripe by Henry Williams (1973)

A bloke, his missus and his Holden Monaro. I've not read anything that captures laconic Australian humour and idiom as well as this impossible to find book. The story is serviceable enough but it's the first person voice of Ron, a car factory line worker that steals the show - and it starts right from the opening line: "Love me, love my Holden. I laid that on the line with the missus before we were spliced." From what I can find, this was Williams' only novel and he wrote it after working in a car factory. It's a lovely ocker snapshot of the time and should be brought back into print.

The Pages by Murray Bail (2008)

I'm sorry but this book just didn't cut it. OK, so Bail's prose is enigmatic and slippery, but the premise here is contrived at best: an academic is sent to a remote farm to read the writings of a little known hermit philosopher who has passed away. What follows unsurprisingly is a thinly veiled philosophical indulgence with some equally thin characters. Look, I did quite enjoy his earlier Canowindra book, even allowing for the unexpected Clare Quilty-like appearance of the suitor. But The Pages has made me reconsider the premise of that book in a different way now too.

The Broken Shore by Peter Temple (2005)

Well now he's gone platinum with the Miles Franklin he's hardly overlooked, but this book simply deserves a wider audience. The Broken Shore is most often described as a crime novel, but it's not really. Yes, Detective Joe Cashin is the flawed heir to Upfield's Bony, but it is in the depth and craft of Temple's characters, his deft dealing with politics and race, his sense of place and just the quality of his spare turn of phrase that make this one of the must-read novels of Australia today.

The Sands of Windee by Arthur Upfield (1930)

I didn't expect this crime novel to be as good as it was. A dead body on a sheep station somewhere the other side of Broken Hill. Enter Bony, part-Aboriginal maverick detective, as self-assured as Sherlock Holmes. Yes, it's of its time and Upfield can seem patronising toward Aboriginals, but at other times his unabashed admiration of them shines through. In fact, it's such a good whodunnit, the murder method in The Sands of Windee was borrowed by an acquaintance of Upfield's in a real life murder spree. 

This Accursed Land by Lennard Bickel (1977)

I chanced upon this book with its icy cyan cover while cleaning out my brother’s house after he died a few years back. Odd, because he didn’t much read. It is the story of Mawson in Antarctica, and it’s one of the most extraordinary tales of survival you will ever read. The author Bickel, an ABC science reporter, brings journalistic brevity and immediacy to the story with startling effect. The result is utterly engrossing and will stay with you for a long time – or at least it has for me, but perhaps for other reasons.

The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead (1940)

Yes, it has an unsavoury title but don’t let that put you off this outstanding novel. Only really discovered in the 1960s, The Man Who Loved Children might be the greatest novel ever written about a dysfunctional family – or a family full stop. Stead, an ex-pat Australian, set the novel on the US east coast but it is largely autobiographical. The parents, Sam & Henny are two of the best realised characters I have encountered in literature and Tim Winton is telling a big fat fib if he doesn’t admit that Cloudstreet was largely inspired by this all-too-neglected masterpiece.