The Thorn Birds
Colleen McCullough, 1977
Historical fiction RomanceContemporary fictionLiterary fiction
A family saga of forbidden love, ambition and the cost of wanting, stretching from the Australian outback to the Vatican. The story moves with a slow, lyrical pull, full of longing, family loyalty and the ache of ambition that won't let go.
Feels like longing, grief and awe. About family, ambition and memory.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy sweeping family sagas where love, faith and ambition pull people in different directions across generations. It carries steady grief and longing, so it may not suit you when you want something light or quickly resolved.
Why read it
It offers a big, emotional view of how want and duty shape a family, with a voice that stays with you after the outback dust settles.
A page from the book
Do we ever really change, or merely become ourselves?
Each of us has something within us which won’t be denied, even if it makes us scream aloud to die. We are what we are, that’s all. Like the old Celtic legend of the bird with the thorn in its breast, singing its heart out and dying. Because it has to, its self-knowledge can’t affect or change the outcome, can it? Everyone singing his own little song, convinced it’s the most wonderful song the world has ever heard. Don’t you see? We create our own thorns, and never stop to count the cost. All we can do is suffer the pain, and tell ourselves it was well worth it. Colleen McCullough.McCullough trained as a neurophysiologist and worked in brain research before The Thorn Birds made her famous.
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Questions readers ask
- Is The Thorn Birds for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy sweeping family sagas where love, faith and ambition pull people in different directions across generations. It carries steady grief and longing, so it may not suit you when you want something light or quickly resolved.
- What is The Thorn Birds like?
- The story moves with a slow, lyrical pull, full of longing, family loyalty and the ache of ambition that won't let go. Feels like longing, grief and awe. About family, ambition and memory.
- What should I read after The Thorn Birds?
- If you liked The Thorn Birds, try The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy), One Italian Summer (Rebecca Serle) and The Berry Pickers (Amanda Peters).
A taste of the feed
What a house becomes when no one has been living in it.
“It was raining when Rahel came back to Ayemenem. Slanting silver ropes slammed into loose earth, plowing it up like gunfire. The old house on the hill wore its steep, gabled roof pulled over its ears like a low hat. The walls, streaked with moss, had grown soft, and bulged a little with dampness that seeped up from the ground. The wild, overgrown garden was full of the whisper and scurry of small lives. In the undergrowth a rat snake rubbed itself against a glistening stone. Hopeful yellow bullfrogs cruised the scummy pond for mates. A drenched mongoose flashed across the leaf strewn driveway.
The God of Small Things · Arundhati Roy
For an only child, books are more than paper; they are a way out.
I found it strange that no word exists for a parent who loses a child. If children lose their parents, they are orphans. If a husband loses his wife, he’s a widower. But there’s no word for a parent who loses a child. I’ve come to believe that the event is just too big, too monstrous, too overwhelming for words. No word could ever describe the feeling, so we leave it unsaid.
The Berry Pickers · Amanda Peters
A daughter hears what her father is really mourning.
I was one of the fastest up-and-coming teen actresses just two years ago, and the moment the fire burned away my looks, the studio pulled my contract. I think he mourns the idea that he’s not the father of an actress more than he mourns almost losing his daughter to a fire that was caused by his carelessness.
November 9 · Colleen Hoover
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