English books from Oceania
Recommended English books (267)
Travel the world without leaving your chair.
If you speak English here are some English books from Oceania for the next part of the "Read Around The World Challenge".
181.
The Animals in That Country by Laura Jean McKay EN
AustraliaDescription:
Out on the road, no one speaks, everything talks. Hard-drinking, foul-mouthed, and allergic to bullshit, Jean is not your usual grandma. She's never been good at getting on with other humans, apart from her beloved granddaughter, Kimberly. Instead, she surrounds herself with animals, working as a guide in an outback wildlife park. And although Jean talks to all her charges, she has a particular soft spot for a young dingo called Sue. As disturbing news arrives of a pandemic sweeping the country, Jean realises this is no ordinary flu: its chief symptom is that its victims begin to understand th... continue
182.
Description:
"In this wordless graphic novel, a man leaves his homeland and sets off for a new country, where he must build a new life for himself and his family."--
183.
The Art of Taxidermy by Sharon Kernot EN
Description:
• Shortlisted for the 2017 Text Prize, The Art of Taxidermy is a lyrical YA verse novel exploring love and grief and the strange and wonderful art of taxidermy • Lottie, the daughter of German migrants, develops a fascination for death after losing her mother at a young age. When Lottie begins collecting dead animals, her aunt tries to redirect her energies into more 'feminine' activities, but her father encourages her interest believing she has a scientist's curiosity • A novel that explores ideas of beauty and art, and of finding comfort in unexpected places • For fans of Steven Herrick, The... continue
184.
The Backyard Adventurer by Beau Miles EN
Description:
After years of adventuring around the globe - running, kayaking, hitchhiking, exploring - Beau Miles came back to his block in country Victoria. Staying put for the first time in years, Beau developed a new kind of lifestyle as the Backyard Adventurer. Whether it was walking 90km to work with no provisions, building a canoe paddle out of scavenged scrap or running a disused railway line through properties, blackberry thickets and past inquiring police officers, Beau has been finding ways to satisfy his adventurous spirit close to home. This book is about conscious experimentation with adventur... continue
185.
The Beloved by Annah Faulkner EN
Description:
When Roberta 'Bertie' Lightfoot is crippled by polio, her world collapses. But Mama doesn't tolerate self-pity, and Bertie is nobody if not her mother's daughter - until she sets her heart on becoming an artist. But when the family moves to Port Moresby in 1955, Bertie starts to rebel against her mother's strict control.
186.
The Bone People by Keri Hulme EN
Country: Oceania / 
New Zealand
New Zealand
Description:
Integrating both Maori myth and New Zealand reality, The Bone People became the most successful novel in New Zealand publishing history when it appeared in 1984. Set on the South Island beaches of New Zealand, a harsh environment, the novel chronicles the complicated relationships between three emotional outcasts of mixed European and Maori heritage. Kerewin Holmes is a painter and a loner, convinced that "to care for anything is to invite disaster." Her isolation is disrupted one day when a six-year-old mute boy, Simon, breaks into her house. The sole survivor of a mysterious shipwreck, Simon... continue
187.
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak EN
Description:
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE’S 100 BEST YA BOOKS OF ALL TIME The extraordinary, beloved novel about the ability of books to feed the soul even in the darkest of times. When Death has a story to tell, you listen. It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still. Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to rea... continue
188.
The Bookseller at the End of the World by Ruth Shaw EN
Country: Oceania / New Zealand
New Zealand
Description:
Ruth Shaw weaves together stories of the characters who visit her bookshops, musings about her favourite books, and bittersweet stories from her full and varied life before bookshops. She sailed through the Pacific for years, was held up by pirates, worked at Sydney's King's Cross with drug addicts and prostitutes, campaigned on numerous environmental issues, and worked the yacht Breaksea Girl as an expedition/tourist boat with her husband, Lance. But underlining all her wanderings and adventures are some very deep losses and long-held pain. Balancing that out is her beautiful love story with ... continue
189.
The Boy from the Mish by Gary Lonesborough EN
Description:
A funny and heart-warming queer Indigenous YA novel, set in a rural Australian community, about seventeen-year-old Jackson finding the courage to explore who he is, even if it scares him.
190.
The Chemistry of Tears by Peter Carey EN
Description:
Forced to hide her grief when her married lover dies unexpectedly, museum curator Catherine Gehrig works in solitude to restore a 19th-century automaton and finds comfort in the journals of its adventurous commissioner. By the two-time Man Booker Prize-winning author of Oscar and Lucinda. 50,000 first printing.