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Post by Soutpeel on Apr 21, 2016 8:00:04 GMT 7
Has anyone ever picked a book and thought, Cant see this being much good, read it anyway and at the end of it thought what a great book ?....mine was a book called "The Power of One" by Bryce Courtenay, read the back cover...thought ho hum, started reading it and couldn't put it down
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Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2016 8:11:44 GMT 7
Have done it the other was round, picked up a highly recommended book which turned out to be a crock of crap full of inaccuracies - Damage done by Warren Fellows.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2016 8:14:10 GMT 7
Did find Jeffrey Archers short stories to be very good despite him being a knob, they were sort of like Roald Dahl's 'Tales of the unexpected'.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2016 8:15:56 GMT 7
Another good book for comedy value is 'The Bible', absolutely hilarious some of the stuff in there.
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Post by Soutpeel on Apr 21, 2016 8:18:09 GMT 7
Have done it the other was round, picked up a highly recommended book which turned out to be a crock of crap full of inaccuracies - Damage done by Warren Fellows. Have read that one agreed, in addition to inaccuracies it was badly ghost written IMHO |
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Post by Soutpeel on Apr 21, 2016 8:19:53 GMT 7
Another good book for comedy value is 'The Bible', absolutely hilarious some of the stuff in there. I preferred the movie version |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 22, 2016 9:03:31 GMT 7
Got handed the story of Anthony Keidis from the red hot chilli peppers biography. It was pretty much crap, just a book on him scoring drugs constantly. Only 1 interesting (slightly) fact was his babysitters as a child were Sonny and Cher.
Bookman sent me a book not long ago about every single brewery Australia ever had which was good. 1000s of Breweries on nearly every block in Australia back in the 1800s but died out to about a dozen by the 1900s. Imo the vast majority that did survive make very average beer.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2016 10:35:20 GMT 7
I was in Na Trang in 2004 madly reading every book I could find about Vietnam. English guy who owned the bar I was drinking in (heavily) handed me a book one day and said - forget those other books, if you only ever read one book about Vietnam this is the one.
The book was "When Heaven and Earth Changed Places" by Le Ly Hayslip.
An amazing book, at times I broke down reading it and had to put it down, but came back the next day.
I will never forget what the author said on the first page, something like "we knew nothing about communism and even less about democracy". Poor rice farming villagers, caught right in the middle of the war between the North Vietnamese and the Americans.
Second trip I did to Vietnam in 2005 I was so fascinated in the story I paid a local guide to take me to her village, which was featured in the first part of the book. The village is called Ky La (Binh Ky in Viet) and was not much to look at but when you thought about the atrocities that took place there it was a very moving experience.
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2016 1:53:36 GMT 7
I was in Na Trang in 2004 madly reading every book I could find about Vietnam. English guy who owned the bar I was drinking in (heavily) handed me a book one day and said - forget those other books, if you only ever read one book about Vietnam this is the one. The book was "When Heaven and Earth Changed Places" by Le Ly Hayslip. An amazing book, at times I broke down reading it and had to put it down, but came back the next day. I will never forget what the author said on the first page, something like "we knew nothing about communism and even less about democracy". Poor rice farming villagers, caught right in the middle of the war between the North Vietnamese and the Americans. Second trip I did to Vietnam in 2005 I was so fascinated in the story I paid a local guide to take me to her village, which was featured in the first part of the book. The village is called Ky La (Binh Ky in Viet) and was not much to look at but when you thought about the atrocities that took place there it was a very moving experience. Noted - I'll read it. re Jeffrey Archer, for all his faults he could tell a story - I read his Kane & Abel book as a teenager and was jolted a couple of times to the point I had to go read passages several times in disbelief. Watership Down was a great read around about the same time. Red Storm Rising ( Tom Clancy ) an outstanding book. "Made in America," by Sam Walton an excellent non-fiction book. I was a great fan of Stephen King, but went off him in the mid-90's as I was seeing too many repetitive, stupid characterizations. However, I do recognize that he is the greatest story teller alive - and particularly good at short stories/novellas. The Green Mile Shawshank Redemption Skeleton Crew ( collection ) - all excellent. |
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2016 5:32:58 GMT 7
^ You won't regret it blether, it's a great read. Was especially good for me because I visited the village where a lot of the book was set, very moving.
Anything by James Michener is worth reading, a great combination of history and fiction.
Same with John LeCarre, love his spy stories.
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Post by Soutpeel on May 28, 2016 10:55:57 GMT 7
My favorite authors at the moment:
Ken Follet - eg Pillars of the Earth, World without end, Fall of Giants, Winter of the World and Edge of Eternity...superbly written
Tony Park - eg Zambezi, The Delta, Dark Heart
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