Book to Screen

With the AACTA awards ceremony this month, it's a good time to check out some of the great Australian novels that have been adapted for the screen!

Updated January 16, 2024
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Big little lies
Moriarty, Liane
Paper Book
From the author of Here One Moment and The Husband's Secret comes the #1 New York Times bestselling novel about the dangerous little lies we tell ourselves just to survive. THE INSPIRATION FOR THE AWARD-WINNING HBO® SERIES STARRING REESE...
The book thief
Zusak, Markus
Paper Book
The extraordinary #1 New York Times bestseller that is now a major motion picture, Markus Zusak's unforgettable story is about the ability of books to feed the soul. It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier...
Boy swallows universe
Dalton, Trent
Paper Book
"The best book I read this decade." --Sharon Van Etten in Rolling Stone "Boy Swallows Universe hypnotizes you with wonder, and then hammers you with heartbreak. . . . Eli's remarkably poetic voice and his astonishingly open heart take the day. They enable him to carve out the best of what...
The brush-off
Maloney, Shane
Ebook
Murray Whelan, political adviser to the newly appointed minister of culture, is hanging on to his job by his toenails after the most recent ministerial shakeup. His learning curve is forced quickly upward when, on his first day, the disgruntled young artist Marcus Taylor is found dead, drowned in...
Cocaine blues
Greenwood, Kerry
Audiobook
From the author of the bestselling Phryne Fisher Series comes Cocaine Blues, the first historical mystery featuring the sensual, posh, and intrepid murder detective Phryne Fisher... "Phryne can not get enough of adventure and the reader can not get enough of Phryne."--Deadly Pleasures ...
Dressmaker, the (fti)
Ham, Rosalie
Paper Book
A darkly satirical novel of love, revenge, and 1950s haute couture--now a major motion picture starring Kate Winslet, Judy Davis, Liam Hemsworth, and Hugo Weaving   After twenty years spent mastering the art of dressmaking at couture houses in Paris, Tilly Dunnage...
The dry
Harper, Jane
Paper Book
A small town hides big secrets in The Dry, an atmospheric, page-turning debut mystery by award-winning author Jane Harper. After getting a note demanding his presence, Federal Agent Aaron Falk arrives in his hometown for the first time in decades to attend the funeral of his best friend,...
Force of nature
Harper, Jane
Paper Book
Goodreads Choice Award Finalist (Mystery & Thriller, 2018) BookBrowse Best Books of 2018 Winner of the Prix Polar Award for Best International NovelBookRiot's 25 Best Suspense Books from 2018 Davitt Awards shortlist for Adult Crime Novel 2018 ...
Jasper Jones : a novel
Silvey, Craig
Ebook
A Michael L. Printz Honor Book Charlie Bucktin, a bookish thirteen year old, is startled one summer night by an urgent knock on his bedroom window. His visitor is Jasper Jones, an outcast in their small mining town, and he has come to ask for Charlie's help. Terribly afraid but...
The light between oceans
Stedman, M. L.
Paper Book
The years-long New York Times bestseller and major motion picture from Spielberg's Dreamworks is "irresistible...seductive...with a high concept plot that keeps you riveted from the first page" (O, The Oprah Magazine). After four harrowing years on the Western Front...
The lost flowers of Alice Hart
Ringland, Holly
Paper Book
An enchanting and captivating novel about how our untold stories haunt us -- and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive. After her family suffers a tragedy, nine-year-old Alice Hart is forced to leave her idyllic seaside home. She is taken in by her grandmother, June, a flower...
Nine perfect strangers
Moriarty, Liane
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER, now a Hulu original series "If three characters were good in Big Little Lies, nine are even better in Nine Perfect Strangers." --Lisa Scottoline, The New York Times Book Review From the #1...
On the beach
Shute, Nevil
Paper Book
Nevil Shute's most powerful novel--a bestseller for decades after its 1957 publication--is an unforgettable vision of a post-apocalyptic world. After a nuclear World War III has destroyed most of the globe, the few remaining survivors in southern Australia await the radioactive cloud...
Schindler's ark
Keneally, Thomas
Ebook
In remembrance of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and the Nazi concentration camps, this award-winning, bestselling work of Holocaust fiction, inspiration for the classic film and "masterful account of the growth of the human soul" (Los Angeles Times Book Review),...
Scrublands
Hammer, Chris
Paper Book
In this searing, "indisputable page-turner" (Associated Press), a town's dark secrets come to light in the aftermath of a young priest's unthinkable last act--in the vein of The Dry and Where the Crawdads Sing. In Riversend, an isolated Australian community...
The secret river
Grenville, Kate
Ebook
This Man Booker Award Finalist and Commonwealth Prize-winner is an "unforgettable" tale of crime and survival in colonial Australia (Chicago Tribune).   In 1806 William Thornhill, an illiterate English bargeman and a man of quick temper but deep compassion, steals...
The slap
Tsiolkas, Christos
Paper Book
The basis for the NBC event series directed by Lisa Cholodenko and starring Uma Thurman, Peter Sarsgaard, and Zachary Quinto. In this powerful and riveting novel reminiscent of Liane Moriarty's Truly, Madly, Guilty, literary phenomenon Christos Tsiolkas unflinchingly...
The thorn birds
McCullough, Colleen
Paper Book
"Beautiful....Compelling entertainment." --New York Times One of the most beloved novels of all time, The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCullough's sweeping family saga of dreams, titanic struggles, dark passions, and forbidden love in the Australian Outback, returns to enthrall a new generation.<...

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