If I had to recommend some books...

Just suppose a friend was taking his family on a seven-month trip around Australia and he asked me to recommend some books, what would I suggest? Well here's my list. The top three get a star, though it's a close-run thing.

• The Great World by David Malouf 
• Journey to the Stone Country by Alex Miller
• The War of Don Emmauel's Nether Parts, Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord and The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman by Louis de Bernieres (a triology I think, but you can start anywhere)
• anything by Gabriel García Marquéz (except 100 Years of Solitude - I accidentally wrote 1000 Years at first, because that's what it felt like reading it)
• *All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing & Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy (a triology, but you can start anywhere)
• anything by Ernest Hemmingway (except The Old Man and the Sea) 
• The Lord of the Rings by Tolkein (this one is brilliant for a long trip) 
• Underworld by Don DeLillo
• *Mr Darwin's Shooter by Roger McDonald
• classics by the Brontes, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens are also absolutely fantastic once you get used to the olden days style of writing

Plus, if they were up for harder-to-read books, I'd absolutely add:

• anything by Patrick White
• *Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey
• Ulysses by James Joyce
• some Virginia Wolf
• some Southern US writers (As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor)

Feel like I'm missing something... Oh my goodness, I'm missing pretty much the whole of Europe, including England, the birthplace of the English language!!! I can't remember what I've enjoyed from there!?!