Popular Oceanian Contemporary Fiction Books
Find contemporary fiction books written by authors from Oceania for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge. (37)
11.
Maestro by Peter Goldsworthy EN
AustraliaDescription:
Against the backdrop of Darwin, that small, tropical hothouse of a port, half-outback, half-oriental, lying at the tip of northern Australia, a young and newly arrived southerner encounters the 'maestro', a Viennese refugee with a shadowed past. The occasion is a piano lesson, the first of many. 'I enjoyed Maestro enormously. Besides its thoughtfulness and bright sensuality, it has a playful quality, a love of jest, which appealed to me very much.' Helen Garner, SYDNEY REVIEW On release, MAEStRO was hailed 'a splendid achievement, a wise, deeply felt novel that continues to haunt well after on... continue
12.
Magnolia Parks by Jessa Hastings EN
Description:
She is a beautiful, affluent, self-involved and mildly neurotic London socialite. He is Britain's most photographed bad-boy lothario who broke her heart. But Magnolia Parks and BJ Ballentine are meant to be, and everyone knows it. They're in the stars... just suspended in a strange kind of love that looks like hurting each other a lot of the time: She dates other people to keep him at bay; he sleeps with other girls to get back at her for it. But at the end of their every sad endeavour to get over one another, it's still each other they crawl back to. But their dysfunction is catching up with ... continue
13.
Country: Oceania / 
New Zealand
New Zealand
Description:
In a novel that is at once intense, beautiful, and fablelike, Lloyd Jones weaves a transcendent story that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the power of narrative to transform our lives. On a copper-rich tropical island shattered by war, where the teachers have fled with most everyone else, only one white man chooses to stay behind: the eccentric Mr. Watts, object of much curiosity and scorn, who sweeps out the ruined schoolhouse and begins to read to the children each day from Charles Dickens’s classic Great Expectations. So begins this rare, original story about the abiding ... continue
14.
Mullumbimby by Melissa Lucashenko EN
Description:
When Jo Breen uses her divorce settlement to buy a neglected property in the Byron Bay hinterland, she's hoping for a tree change, and a blossoming connection to the land of her Aboriginal ancestors. What she discovers instead is sharp dissent from her teenage daughter, trouble brewing from unimpressed white neighbors, and a looming Native Title war between the local Bundjalung families. When Jo unexpectedly finds love on one side of the Native Title divide she quickly learns that living on country is only part of the recipe for the good life.
15.
Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty EN
Description:
One luxury retreat in the middle of nowhere. Ten days in which no one can leave. Nine strangers seeking perfection. And each discovering the perfect lie...
16.
Not Here to Make Friends by Jodi McAlister EN
Description:
In this “full-on villain romance” (The New York Times) a group of women on a reality dating show should be vying for the love of their Romeo, but it turns out one of them only has eyes for the showrunner. Murray O’Connell is standing on the greatest precipice of his career. As showrunner of the reality dating show Marry Me, Juliet, Murray is determined to make this season a success. Nothing and nobody will stand in his way. Except perhaps Lily Fireball, the network’s choice for this season’s villain. Lily has classic reality TV appeal: She’s feisty, dramatic, and never backs down from a fight.... continue
17.
Pictures of You : A Novel by Emma Grey EN
Description:
A PEOPLE Magazine's Best Book of November 2024 A November 2024 Book of the Month Selection A National Bestseller What would you do if you could start over? Imagine having a second chance with the one you never forgot. From the author of the global breakout bestseller The Last Love Note comes the story of a young woman struggling to piece her life back together in the wake of a tragic accident, and the man who gives up everything to help her. Evie Hudson should be grieving her dead husband, but since the car crash that claimed his life and landed her in the hospital, she can’t remember him at a... continue
18.
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts EN
Description:
Novel based on author's life. Gregory David Roberts committed a series of robberies while addicted to heroin, and in 1980 he escaped over the front wall of Victoria's maximum-security prison, making him one of Australia's most wanted men. His subsequent journey took him to various places including Bombay, where he established a free medical clinic for slum-dwellers and worked as a counterfeiter, smuggler, gunrunner and street soldier for the Bombay mafia. Explores the author's journey from being a wanted criminal in Australia to finding humanity on the wild edge of experience.
19.
Sons for the Return Home by Albert Wendt EN
SamoaDescription:
Originally published in 1973, this story of star-crossed lovers spotlights the complex nature of love, freedom, and racism in New Zealand. Samoan writer Albert Wendt's first novel, Sons for the Return Home, has long been out of print. Yet, readers continue to respond to the clarity of vision in this simple, powerful story of cross-cultural encounter.
20.
Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood EN
Description:
THE NEW NOVEL BY THE AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE WEEKEND, NOW LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024 A Guardian Book of the Summer 2024 A Book of the Year for the Sydney Morning Herald and ABC Shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award Shortlisted for The Age Book of the Year Shortlisted for the ABIA Award for Literary Fiction Longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award 'A beautiful, mature work that does not flinch from life' SUNDAY TIMES 'A book about what it means to be good: simply and with great humility, it asks the big questions, leaving the reader feeling kinder, more brave, enla... continue