The text or subtext of much Australian fiction is both the vastness of the continent and its settlement by British convicts. Australian novels convey the idea that place somehow defines who and what you are. (Canadian fiction shares this sense of place to some degree.) Many Australian novelists write about journeys, road trips, people running away from their pasts or their presents (or their presence in their own life), challenged by the terrain, the weather, the impossibility of leaving (and the equal impossibility of staying), their own history, and the inner demons that plague them.

Martin Boyd’s The Cardboard Crown; A Difficult Young Man; When Blackbirds Sing; and Outbreak of Love comprise a wonderful (and little-known) series written in the 1950s about an Australian family who move to England when things go wrong in Australia, and move back to Australia when things go wrong in England. The first two books are especially good.

• Comment here! What's your favorite book set in Australia--or written by an Aussie?

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Other notable Australian novels include Jessica Anderson’s Tirra Lirra by the River and The Only Daughter; James Bradley’s Wrack; Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang and Oscar and Lucinda; Miles Franklin’s My Brilliant Career (first published in 1901 and still a delight to read); Nikki Gemmell’s Alice Springs; Janette Turner Hospital’s Oyster; Thomas Keneally’s Woman of the Inner Sea; David Malouf’s Remembering Babylon; and Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet; That Eye, The Sky; and Dirt Music.

Tasmania

Novels set in Tasmania form their own subgenre within the broader category of “Australia.” Some of my favorites are Richard Flanagan’s The Sound of One Hand Clapping; Death of a River Guide; and Gould’s Book of Fish; and Matthew Kneale’s English Passengers.

Two of the best novels set in Australia are by Nevil Shute: A Town Like Alice and The Breaking Wave (Requiem for a Wren is its title in the United Kingdom). Shute, who was born in England, moved to Australia when he was nearly fifty and dearly loved his adopted country.