Capturing everyday lives and exceptional dreams, novels have held up a mirror to the nation, reflecting the good and the bad.

Touching on colonial invasion, the bush myth, world wars, mass migration, the recognition of Indigenous sovereignty and the emergence of a modern, global, multicultural nation, Carl examines how these pivotal events and persuasive ideas have shaped some of Australia’s most influential novels, and how these books, in turn, made us.

In a panoramic account of Australian fiction stretching from Marcus Clarke to Melissa Lucashenko, Patrick White to Peter Carey, and Henry Handel Richardson to Michelle de Kretser, this is a new history of key authors and compelling books that have kept us reading and made a difference for over 200 years.