Radio National's Top 100 Australian Books Countdown 2026
Australians are raised on countdowns: the Triple J Hottest 100, beer rankings argued over at the bar, even the countdown to summer and its long, placid days at the beach. So when Radio National set out to rank the Top 100 Books, Goons were always going to turn up.
Last year RN counted down the Best Books of the 21st Century. This year it narrowed the field to Australian writers, the ones many Goons credit with making them readers in the first place. At TGBC we thought those books deserved a crowd, so we gave them one.
Goons across the country put their hands up to host listening parties in country towns and capital cities. Our book talk usually lives in the quieter corners of the pubs and bars where our chapters meet, but for one day it took over whole venues.
In Melbourne, Goons from all over packed into Molly Rose Brewery in Collingwood. Hundreds of men in their favourite merch raised their glasses to the writers who shaped them. Nearly every title read out in RN’s congenial tones got the same treatment as the one before it: a lone voice declaring, “Shoulda been higher!”
The real contest was at the tables, at the bar and out on the footpath. One group worked through the morality of Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip, spilling beer as the argument wore on, and agreed it had been robbed, landing that low. Nearby, a pack of Goons went to great lengths over the best cake in The Australian Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book, and some talked about pulling out their own childhood copies to show their kids.
People walking past slowed down to look inside, and plenty of them wandered in. Some stayed long enough to raise a glass to Mem Fox and Julie Vivas’s Possum Magic landing so high, and a few walked out as new recruits for their local chapter.
RN gave TGBC several shout-outs on air, and hearing our name on national radio never gets old. CEO Shay Leighton crossed for a live interview, while some of the RN crew came down to spend time in the crowd talking to Goons.
When Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet finally took the top spot, cheers and groans went up together, and from more than one corner of the room came a hearty “It’s on my bedside pile.” For all the noise, that was the whole point: a room full of men who give a damn about books, all in the same place.
At every venue, it felt like a room of old friends who hadn’t met yet. Someone buys you a pint because you’ve found a shared connection, a Goon from a chapter across town pulls up a chair to join the conversation, and before long you’re all talking like you’ve known each other for years.
Every one of these events was built by Goons who put their hands up, from Collingwood to Canberra, Sutherland to Sydney and plenty of places in between, including two loyal Goons in the UK who tuned in to represent TGBC. You found the rooms, rallied your chapters and kept the arguments going until last drinks were called. Thank you for bringing the spirit that makes TGBC what it is, and what it will be for years to come: books, brews and building community.
By Lachlan Palamara
