Cloudstreet, Tim Winton’s sprawling Australian family epic, has been voted Australia’s favourite book in a poll run by ABC Radio National. The broadcaster announced the results of the nationwide poll to determine a list of readers’ top 100 Australian books over the weekend.

Markus Zusak’s 2005 novel The Book Thief took second place, while Trent Dalton’s Boy Swallows Universe came in third, rounding out a podium dominated by male authors. First published in 1991, Cloudstreet follows two working-class Australian families, the Lambs and the Pickles, over their 20 years living together in an old rambling house called Cloudstreet in postwar Perth.

The story, which stands as Winton’s fifth novel and ninth book, won a swathe of awards upon publication including the Miles Franklin in 1992 and has remained a staple of Australian English literature classes for decades. It has sold hundreds of thousands of copies domestically.

Cloudstreet has also topped previous polls on Australian books, such as an Australian Society of Authors survey of writers in 2003 and a subsequent public poll run by the ABC that same year. The novel additionally appeared in a 2019 BBC list of 100 novels that shaped the world.

The final top 100 list in this year’s ABC Radio National poll encompassed adult fiction, nonfiction, young adult fiction, children’s picture books, history, and cookbooks. Among them, The Australian Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book landed at number 22, Stephanie Alexander’s The Cook’s Companion came in at number 56, and Nagi Maehashi’s RecipeTin Eats: Dinner made the cut at 96.

Prominent writers including Helen Garner, Melissa Lucashenko, Geraldine Brooks, Anna Funder, Peter Carey, and Hannah Kent all secured multiple entries in the top 100. Works by children’s authors such as Alison Lester, Paul Jennings, Mem Fox, Jeannie Baker, and Ruth Park were also featured.

The earliest published work on the list was Marcus Clarke’s For the Term of His Natural Life from 1874 at number 80, while the most recent entries included Sally Hepworth’s Mad Mabel and Charlotte McConaghy’s Wild Dark Shore, both slated for publication in 2025.

Kate Evans, host of ABC Radio National’s literary show The Bookshelf, noted that the selections spanned audacious literary fiction, historical accounts, joyful children’s books, and Indigenous stories of both pain and humour. Evans remarked that the diverse list defies glib conclusions about contemporary reading habits.