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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Barracuda :
Tsiolkas, Christos,
Paper Book
Man Booker Prize-longlisted author of The Slap (soon to be an NBC miniseries) returns in an "immensely moving" (Sunday Times) story of a young athlete's coming of age   Fourteen-year-old Daniel Kelly is special. Despite his upbringing in working-class...
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...
Cocaine blues :
Greenwood, Kerry.
Paper Book
This is where it all started! The first classic Phryne Fisher mystery, featuring our delectable heroine, cocaine, communism and adventure. Phryne leaves the tedium of English high society for Melbourne, Australia, and never looks back. The London season is in full fling at the end of the 1920s, but...
The dressmaker /
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 :
Silvey, Craig,
Paper Book
A 2012 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...
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...
Schindler's list /
Keneally, Thomas
Paper Book
A stunning novel based on the true story of how German war profiteer and factory direktor Oskar Schindler came to save more Jews from the gas chambers than any other single person during World War II. In this milestone of Holocaust literature, Thomas Keneally uses the actual testimony of the...
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,
Paper Book
The Orange Prize-winning author Kate Grenville recalls her family's history in an astounding novel about the pioneers of New South Wales. Already a best seller in Australia, The Secret River is the story of Grenville's ancestors, who wrested a new life from the alien terrain of Australia...
The thorn birds /
McCullough, Colleen,
Paper Book
Colleen McCullough's sweeping saga of dreams, struggles, dark passions, and forbidden love in the Australian Outback has enthralled readers the world over. This is the chronicle of three generations of Clearys, ranchers carving lives from a beautiful, hard land while contending with the bitterness,...
True history of the Kelly gang /
Carey, Peter,
Paper Book
Out of nineteenth-century Australia rides a hero of his people and a man for all nations, in this masterpiece by the Booker Prize-winning author of Oscar and Lucinda and Jack Maggs. Exhilarating, hilarious, panoramic, and immediately engrossing, it is also—at a distance of many thousand miles...

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