A few books worth reading before or during a trip through this region.
The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes is the defining account of Australia's origins as a British penal colony — brutal, vivid, and essential for understanding the country's foundational psychology.
In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson is the best introduction to Australia for first-time visitors. Funny, curious, and genuinely informative, it covers the country's scale, its wildlife, and its history with affection and clarity.
The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin is more literary and more contested, but it remains one of the most serious attempts by an outsider to grapple with Aboriginal culture and the relationship between people and land in central Australia.
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, winner of the 2013 Booker Prize, is set during New Zealand's 1860s gold rush and captures something true about the country's frontier history and its relationship with settler culture.
The Bone People by Keri Hulme is the defining novel of modern Maori literature — difficult, mythic, and unlike anything else. It won the Booker Prize in 1985.
Blue Latitudes by Tony Horwitz follows the voyages of Captain James Cook across the Pacific. It's partly travel writing and partly history, and it handles both Cook's achievements and the devastation European contact brought to Pacific societies with honesty.
For the Pacific islands specifically, The Happy Isles of Oceania by Paul Theroux is a paddling journey through the island nations that is sometimes curmudgeonly but always observant and honest about what the region is really like.