Arabic version: «كلاودستريت» تتصدر استطلاع إذاعة ABC للكتب الأسترالية
According to The Guardian, Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet has been voted Australia’s favourite book in a nationwide ABC Radio National poll of readers’ top 100 Australian books. Markus Zusak’s 2005 novel The Book Thief placed second, while Trent Dalton’s Boy Swallows Universe finished third.
First published in 1991, Cloudstreet follows the working-class Lamb and Pickles families during 20 years living together in an old house called Cloudstreet in postwar Perth. The novel was Winton’s fifth novel and ninth book. It won the Miles Franklin in 1992, has remained a staple of Australian English literature classes and has sold hundreds of thousands of copies in Australia.
The book has also led earlier polls of Australian titles, including a 2003 Australian Society of Authors survey of writers’ favourites and an ABC public poll that year. It appeared in the BBC’s 2019 list of “100 novels that shaped our world”.
ABC Radio National’s final 100 included adult fiction, nonfiction, young adult fiction, children’s picture books, history and cookbooks. The Australian Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book ranked No 22, Stephanie Alexander’s The Cook’s Companion was No 56, and Nagi Maehashi’s RecipeTin Eats: Dinner came in at 96.
Kate Evans, host of Radio National’s literary show The Bookshelf, said the selection ranged from literary fiction and historical accounts to children’s books, Indigenous stories and family stories. The oldest work listed was Marcus Clarke’s For the Term of His Natural Life, published in 1874 and ranked No 80. The newest were Sally Hepworth’s Mad Mabel and Charlotte McConaghy’s Wild Dark Shore, both published in 2025.
