The Thorn Birds

The Thorn Birds was published in 1977 and became the best-selling book in Australian history, with more than thirty million copies sold worldwide. Colleen McCullough was a neurophysiologist before she was a novelist, and she wrote the story of the Cleary family after moving to the United States; the outback station at the centre of it, Drogheda, is named after a town in Ireland and is drawn from the sheep country of the author's childhood. The novel is included on the Big Jubilee Read list of Commonwealth books assembled in 2022.

The spine of the book is Meggie's relationship with Ralph, which neither of them is able to end and neither is able to have. Ralph chooses the Church, and the Church pays for him: the novel tracks his rise through the hierarchy alongside the family's fortunes, and the consequences of his decisions land on Meggie's marriage, her children and the next generation. Around them McCullough assembles a full cast of Clearys, including Meggie's brothers and the son who is named for the station, and the book keeps its attention on what the land costs the people who work it.

The novel was adapted into a television miniseries in 1983 that became one of the most-watched in American broadcasting history, and a second miniseries in 1996 filled in a gap in the middle of the story. A musical version followed in 2009. The book belongs to the tradition of the big family saga, and it is one of the few Australian novels of its era to reach that audience abroad.