Six books that changed Catherine Jinks

Catherine Jinks, author of How to Catch a Bogle and many other books, is a three-time winner of the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year award, and has also won a Victorian Premier's Literature Award, the Ena Noel Award for Children's Literature, and an Aurealis Award for Science Fiction. In 2001 she was presented with a Centenary Medal for her contribution to Australian Children's Literature.

One of six books that changed her, as shared with the Sydney Morning Herald:

The Fatal Shore, Robert Hughes

In primary school I was bored witless by Australian history. But on reading The Fatal Shore in my early 20s, I discovered Australian history was full of death and sex and sadism and lunacy and everything else you could possibly want as subject matter. This book was the reason I honeymooned in Tasmania, and it also led, indirectly, to my colonial novels, The Gentleman's Garden and The Dark Mountain.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue