When ABC’s Radio National presents its countdown to Australia’s favourite books this weekend, Tough Guy Book Club members will be partying like it’s the Triple J Hottest 100.

Shay Leighton, Melbourne-based founder of the club that now has almost 10,000 members across eight countries, reckons the country’s rich literary culture should be celebrated not just in libraries and writers’ festivals, but also in bars and pubs.

That’s where Tough Guy members and anyone else who cares to join them will be gathering for the RN countdown from 1pm on Sunday.

“Nearly everyone my age grew up going to Triple J Hottest 100 parties,” Leighton says.

“So, when Radio National decided they were going to count down the top 100 Australian books of all time, we immediately knew what we needed to do – run listening parties, get everyone together, have some barbecues and listen to the countdown.

“We’ve got 10 parties happening across the country and everyone is invited. Come on down, talk about Australian books, celebrate the stories that make our country, cheer for your favourites and argue about who got robbed.”

While the parties are open to anyone over 18, Tough Guy Book Club’s regular meetings are a strictly men-only affair. Despite the tongue-in-cheek name, however, Leighton says its almost 200 chapters include all kinds of guys – tough and not-so-tough – aged from 19 to 97.

The book club’s chapters meet monthly at pubs around the world. Photo: supplied

With surveys showing around 80 per cent of book club members in Australia are women, the aim of the club is to create somewhere that men are encouraged to read more and engage in “real, decent conversations”.

Leighton admits that when he and a mate came up with the idea in 2012, they were entering unchartered territory.

“We’d never been to one,” he tells The New Daily. “We didn’t know much about them, to be quite honest.

“So Tough Guy Book Club is built for guys who don’t think they’re book club guys, you know – who didn’t feel like they were invited to that kind of space.”

Leighton, who was 30 when the club was founded, says he had felt like something was lacking in his life. He thought back to the last time he felt truly happy.

“And it was hiding in a library as a teenager, reading books. Because I think, like many men, you get to a point where somehow reading fell off the table … I just wasn’t reading that much anymore.”

Shay Leighton says Tough Guy Book Club welcomes lively discussion. Photo: supplied

Tough Guy Book Club began with a small group meeting at a pub in Melbourne’s Collingwood. It has grown exponentially in the years since, with chapters across Australia as well as New Zealand, the US, Europe and Asia.

They all meet in a pub on the same day each month and read the same book – and there’s not a sports memoir or war history to be seen.

“We read novels because we’re a club about characters and stories,” explains the Tough Guy Book Club website.

The list of this year’s books reveals the diversity of those stories. It includes everything from John Steinbeck’s 1947 novella The Pearl, to British author Dolly Alderton’s romantic comedy Good Material and Irish writer Claire Keegan’s prize-winning historical novel Small Things Like These.

Leighton says Small Things Like These and Australian author Jock Serong’s Cherrywood, which features a fictional pub in Melbourne’s Fitzroy, especially resonated with members of his chapter.

But it’s not just books that are the appeal of TGBC; it’s also the sense of community that comes from belonging to the club and the mental health benefits that can bring.

Sometimes the literary conversations can get pretty rowdy.

“This is not a quiet book club,” Leighton laughs.

“We make reading a team sport … this is more like a football club that’s got opinions about Jane Austen.”

Like most book lovers, Leighton had difficulty narrowing down his choices to just 10 for Radio National’s Top 100 Australian Books poll before voting closed on October 1.

He reveals that his final selection included Tony Moore’s Death or Liberty, a narrative history about political prisoners transported as convicts to Australia, Sofie Laguna’s Miles Franklin Award-winning novel The Eye of the Sheep, and Andrew McGahan’s Praise.

“Praise is my favourite Australian book… it reminds me of being young and in a dead-end job, growing up in Brisbane in the ’90s. It’s a book that you just feel to your core.”

The Top 100 Australian Books countdown takes place from 1pm (AEST) on Saturday and Sunday, October 17 and 18

Tough Guy Book Club’s countdown listening parties will be held from 1-6pm on Sunday in towns and cities across Australia (details on the TGBC website)