For those who can also read

[Stewbum]

Not yet. What would be a good couple of stories to start with?

You can't go past The Australian Trilogy to start. First book is The Potato Factory and I've read it many times. It triggered an interest in Dickens which changed my life for the better.

 

[veggiepatch1959]

Being a huge sci-fi fan, I have every episode of the original Twilight Zone plus the remakes and both versions of the Outer Limits, all on hard drive. I saying that, here is a list of my favourite sci-fi authors. I would have read over 90% of these authors' complete literary output.

Philip K. Dick
Harlan Ellison
Ray Bradbury

On a different note, one of the best novels I have read is the obscure Deadly Perfume by Gordon Thomas. Written in 1997, it details terrorists using anthrax to poison masses of people in numerous countries. Very prophetic when you consider the anthrax attacks in the US shortly after 9/11. My copy got destroyed in the 2011 Bundaberg floods....damn it.

Another is Tom Clancy's Sum of All Fears. But they botched the movie something shocking.

Third is Escape From Alcatraz by J. Campbell Bruce. The only book I have read non stop from start to finish. But it was a mere 224 pages long!

 

[Whino]

You can't go past The Australian Trilogy to start. First book is The Potato Factory and I've read it many times. It triggered an interest in Dickens which changed my life for the better.

Thanks for the suggestion. I will check it out.

 

[umina panther]

About 6 hours into the Hepatitis Bathtub audio book and its REALLY good. Anyone who has an interest in punk rock or even just good biographies should have a look. All the band members reading their own chapters is cool, you can hear the emotion (good,bad and totally f**ked up) in their voices.

 

[Parra]

I hadn't read Wake In Fright for 20 years or so. Re-read it this weekend. What a classic Australian novel. It is short. Not a long or hard read. Cook fits so much in to those pages. It is all captured so wonderfully in the 1971 film - great screenplay, direction and acting. The book stands on it's own. Fascinating story to have written and so very Australian.

 

[veggiepatch1959]

I hadn't read Wake In Fright for 20 years or so. Re-read it this weekend. What a classic Australian novel. It is short. Not a long or hard read. Cook fits so much in to those pages. It is all captured so wonderfully in the 1971 film - great screenplay, direction and acting. The book stands on it's own. Fascinating story to have written and so very Australian.

In my top 20 all time movies. I didn't know it was based on a book so I'll have to hunt it down.

 

[Stewbum]

Side tracked a bit from War and Peace. Re-read Jeffrey Archer's A Prison Diary I: Hell and currently re-reading John Lydon's Rotten.

 

[Perth Tiger]

Since a few seem to be interested in Russian literature, I would recommend One day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Basically it is about life in a Soviet Gulag.

 

[Parra]

Just read Aussie Grit. Enjoyed the insiders view of racing, particularly F1 of course. Have to remember that everything is from one perspective , however Webber is a straight shooter as you would expect and he gives an honest critique of the major players in F1 including himself.

 

[Stewbum]

Since a few seem to be interested in Russian literature, I would recommend One day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Basically it is about life in a Soviet Gulag.

Ordered, thanks.

For those interested in terrible life stories one cannot go past a book I read while in Knoxville, Tennessee. Highly recommended.

http://www.booktopia.com.au/the-glass-castle-a-memoir-jeannette-walls/prod9780743247542.html

 

[Stewbum]

A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy O'Toole

Added to my Booktopia order.

Also getting The Art Of War.

 

[Parra]

I was waiting for those two words. I've been subjected to too much rhetoric in the workplace from simpletons selling the latest amateur psychology from the managerial sludge factory to change my view. My mind is open enough. The very expression 'professional development' bespeaks too much. Your contribution here has already been significant and is appreciated. But sludge be gone!

We will have to disagree - although there is a lot of truth in what you are saying, there is also very valuable stuff available.

One point I will make - it is pointless reading any of this type of stuff on your own.

 

[Parra]

Based on recollections due to this thread I purchased Touch Wood by Duncan Hamilton.

What a great book. Capture the post -war motor racing spirit like nothing else. Wonderful read.

 

[Stewbum]

We will have to disagree - although there is a lot of truth in what you are saying, there is also very valuable stuff available.

One point I will make - it is pointless reading any of this type of stuff on your own.

Fair enough. At a conceptual level I agree that there is good and bad in every form of writing. I have however, only been the sufferer of the bad from Managerial texts. Many contain basic spelling and grammatical errors, which I abhor. Additionally, most were bereft of the colour which makes up humankind, preferring the sterile and small world of office sociopathy. Alas, I am happily lost forever from their touch, and read only that which gives me pleasure.

 

[Captain Apollo]

I'm reading this thread......

 

[Perth Tiger]

I have just finished reading the Victoriana Trilogia (Map of Time, Map of the Sky and Map of Chaos) by Felix Palma. I loved them and would highly recommended them. Basically it centers around H G Wells and his books (time machine in book 1, War of the worlds book 2 and the Invisible man Book 3) and is a mash up of lots of different stories and genres but beautifully woven together over the three books.

 

[gUt]

Finished Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari - a great general history of civilisation.

Started Gibbon's The Decline and Fall etc, I wonder if I'll finish it.

 

[Stewbum]

I have just finished reading the Victoriana Trilogia (Map of Time, Map of the Sky and Map of Chaos) by Felix Palma. I loved them and would highly recommended them. Basically it centers around H G Wells and his books (time machine in book 1, War of the worlds book 2 and the Invisible man Book 3) and is a mash up of lots of different stories and genres but beautifully woven together over the three books.

I've read those books by HGW. Can you go into more detail? IE is HG a character like Dickens and Wilkie Collins are in Drood?

 

[Perth Tiger]

I've read those books by HGW. Can you go into more detail? IE is HG a character like Dickens and Wilkie Collins are in Drood?

I haven't read any Dickens so I cant compare but yes HG is one of the main characters. There are plenty of other historical figures from that age who also appear or are referenced.

The books are not high literature or anything but a bit of a genre mash up of steam punk, fantasy and sci fi. But they are well written. A quick summary is that it appears that HG's books are becoming real and he gets involved in the mysteries of it all. i.e. in the first book someone seems to have invited a real time machine, in the second the Martians are invading.

 

[Stewbum]

I haven't read any Dickens so I cant compare but yes HG is one of the main characters. There are plenty of other historical figures from that age who also appear or are referenced.

The books are not high literature or anything but a bit of a genre mash up of steam punk, fantasy and sci fi. But they are well written. A quick summary is that it appears that HG's books are becoming real and he gets involved in the mysteries of it all. i.e. in the first book someone seems to have invited a real time machine, in the second the Martians are invading.

Thanks for that. Sounds quite interesting.

Drood is a modern novel but based on stories about Dickens and Collins' ghost-hunting adventures. Well worth the read and could be a gateway to reading Dickens. For me it got me into reading Collins as I'd already devoured Dickens.