Boy Swallows Universe takes top spot in ABC Radio National top 100

Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton (Fourth Estate, 2018) took first place in ABC Radio National’s Top 100 Books of the 21st Century poll.

The results were announced on air as part of the network’s day-long celebration of literature on 19 October.

The top 10 books, as voted by the Australian public, are:

1. Boy Swallows Universe (Trent Dalton, Fourth Estate)
2. The Book Thief (Markus Zusak, Picador)
3. A Gentleman in Moscow (Amor Towles, Windmill Books)
4. All The Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr, Fourth Estate)
5. Lessons in Chemistry (Bonnie Garmus, Penguin)
6. Burial Rites (Hannah Kent, Picador)
7. The Dictionary of Lost Words (Pip Williams, Affirm)
8. Demon Copperhead (Barbara Kingsolver, Faber Fiction)
9. A Little Life (Hanya Yanagihara, Picador)
10. Wolf Hall (Hilary Mantel, Fourth Estate).

Dalton’s Lola in the Mirror (Fourth Estate) also made the list at spot 29. Four of the top 10 titles and 26 of the top 100 titles were written by Australian authors.

To be eligible, books needed to be published in English between 1 January 2000 and 21 August 2025. The poll was open for one month and asked voters to choose books that “changed you or your view of the world, you return to every year, or just blew you away for some other reason”.

More information and the full list is available on the Radio National website.

Category: Local news