Wonderland avenue: the story of Danny Sugarman who was a wild kid who became a friend of Jim Morrison and the Doors and ended up a Junky who managed Iggy Pop before Bowie saved him. A most excellent biography.

Marching Powder: the story of a Drug Smuggler arrested and convicted to surve time in a South American Prison.

Redemption Song: the definitive story of Joe "John Mellor" Strummer

Red Army/Men in Black: the story of Tony O'Neil and the infamous Red Army

Casuals: the definitive Story of Casual Culture and Terrace Fashion

How To Make Gravy: Paul Kelly, in his own words. If you can find it, you can also get a CD collection of his 100 songs played live and in concert that inspired the book.

Street Fighting years: Tariq Ali talks of his years as a young radical and of his involvement with John and yoko.

Woodstock Nation: Abi Hoffman memoir of his time at Woodstock (he's the bloke Pete Towesend smashed in the back of the head for jumping up on stage)

Malinche's Conquest- The story of the women sold into slavery who became the translator and later wife of Hernadez Cortes whose skill as a translator was the direct reason that Cortes was able to destroy the Great "Aztec" empire

Am currently reading the Bourne legacy . Enjoying it

Am currently reading the Bourne legacy . Enjoying it

I've read all of Eric Van Lustbader's Bourne series, and tbh I enjoy them more than Ludlum's, they just seem to be so much more fast paced and action packed.

Legacy is definitely the best of his work though.

Bump.

Picked up 1984 by George Orwell yesterday. Half way through it. Been wanting to read it for a while now, but never thought it'd interest me. About 170 pages in, up to the part where [spoiler]Winston starts having the relationship with Julia[/spoiler].

It's fucking serious and full on. It really does get you thinking and comparing aspects of the book to todays social world, and then social worlds of former dictatorships.

To me it takes the very worst of socialism, and fascism, and blends it all together.

Can't wait to finish it. I hear Animal Farm is excellent, too. Going to have to go and pick that up as well.

Bump.

Picked up 1984 by George Orwell yesterday. Half way through it. Been wanting to read it for a while now, but never thought it'd interest me. About 170 pages in, up to the part where [spoiler]Winston starts having the relationship with Julia[/spoiler].

It's fucking serious and full on. It really does get you thinking and comparing aspects of the book to todays social world, and then social worlds of former dictatorships.

To me it takes the very worst of socialism, and fascism, and blends it all together.

Can't wait to finish it. I hear Animal Farm is excellent, too. Going to have to go and pick that up as well.

anyone read World War Z? i believe, maxi, it's written by the same bloke who wrote the survival guide. been meaning to purchase it for donkeys now. plus now i've been getting told about a movie coming out based on it, seems i have to do it to be remotely hipster.

I have it, bought it at the same time as the Survival Guide, it's next on my to-read list!

To all you young chaps...

Read anything by Kurt Vonnegut.

That is all.

anyone read World War Z? i believe, maxi, it's written by the same bloke who wrote the survival guide. been meaning to purchase it for donkeys now. plus now i've been getting told about a movie coming out based on it, seems i have to do it to be remotely hipster.

Just finished reading 1984 this morning. FMD, great book, bloody powerful read.

An excellent read. The audio book version is even better - just to hear Henry Rollins delivering dialogue that appears to have been written with him specifically in mind.

The Bible is the best book in the world

I have the audiobook downloaded, never got around to listening to it. Should I read the book first or listen to the audiobook?

To all you young chaps...

Read anything by Kurt Vonnegut.

That is all.

I just finished reading The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas, damn i wanted to cry afterwards. Im going to watch the movie, probably will cry after that.

I just finished reading The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas, damn i wanted to cry afterwards. Im going to watch the movie, probably will cry after that.

Book sounds suss. Now you seem suss... :-k :lol:

Read that in yr 9 English 4 yrs ago. Very sad ending. Watched the movie a few months after reading the book, and it's even more sadder.

Probs didn't help that I was watching it with a friend whose grandparents were affected by WWII, but still, I'd keep a box of tissues nearby.

Bestselling author Bryce Courtenay dies, aged 79

Jason Steger
Published: November 23, 2012 - 12:29PM

EACH November for the past 20 years or so, Bryce Courtenay has produced a bestselling blockbuster that has delighted many thousands of loyal readers. This year's offering, Jack of Diamonds, is little different in style or content. But it will be his last.



Courtenay, who has been suffering from stomach cancer, died in Canberra late on Thursday with his wife Christine, his family pets, Tim, the dog, and Cardamon, the Burmese cat by his side. He was 79. He knew he had little time left, but approached his final chapter with his characteristic cheerful spirits and brave face.

"We'd like to thank all of Bryce's family and friends and all of his fans around the world for their love and support for me and his family as he wrote the final chapter of his extraordinary life. And may we make a request for privacy as we cherish his memory," Mrs Courtenay said in a statement released by Penguin publishers.

Courtenay recorded a farewell message in October in which he said his "use-by date has finally come up". He said he didn't mind that he had only a short time to live because "I've had a wonderful life" and he added: "All I'd like to say as simply as I possibly can is thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you."

In a final interview for Penguin, the man who has regularly been Australia's most popular novelist said he was going to die at precisely the right time, while he still had his intellect and energy. "The time is right, it's beautiful, it's gorgeous."

His long-time publisher and friend, Bob Sessions, who will deliver the eulogy at the writer's funeral, told Fairfax when Courtenay let him know him that Jack would be the last book he was stunned and saddened. And there was the question of the book – the plan had been for there to be two.

"I said to him, but what about Jack? And Bryce said 'don't worry, I'll tell them what happens'. And he also took the opportunity (in the book) to say farewell to his readers."

Sessions said Courtenay's strength as a novelist was that he was a marvellous storyteller. "I often likened him to Charles Dickens and I don't say that lightly. He tells sweeping stories and he had larger-than-life characters. And the readers had a sense of learning something about the world."

Courtenay had always wanted to be a storyteller and writing The Power of One, which was published in 1989, "changed his life". Courtenay, then 50, was in advertising and, according to Sessions, "overstressed, drinking several bottles of wine a day, and smoking a hundred cigarettes". He realised his lifestyle would be the death of him and he changed it to write. Courtenay always said becoming a writer was the proudest moment in his life.

Bryce Courtenay's reputation for storytelling in print extended to the telling of his own story, which was frequently embellished. He was born in South Africa in 1933 and brought up partly in an orphanage. There he told stories to avoid being bullied and also learned to box. When I interviewed him at his former home in Bowral he said a schoolmate told him: "If you can't bullshit your way out then you better know how to fight." Courtenay added that he had been bullshitting ever since.

He got a scholarship to a smart school in Johannesburg and when he left opted to study journalism in London. He paid for that by becoming a "grizzly" man doing dangerous work with explosives in the copper mines of the then Rhodesia.

In 1958 he left London for Sydney and the beginning of what he called his love affair with Australia. But he didn't manage to get into journalism and started writing advertising copy. His plan was to work until he was 35 and then write novels. But with his son Damon a haemophiliac, he needed a regular income and eventually reached the top of the advertising business. Signing a $1million publishing deal for The Power of One when he was 55 changed all that.

He followed up the story of Peekay the orphan with the heart-rending April Fool's Day, the story of Damon and his death from Aids, which he contracted from a tainted transfusion in April Fool's Day.

Courtenay wrote a further 19 novels, including Jessica, Tommo & Hawk, and Sylvia, starting each one on the last day of January and completing it by August. He delivered the book to Penguin chapter by chapter so the book could be in the shops in time for Christmas. But he didn't stop there: he also had a serious say in how they were marketed.

Courtenay loved Australia. He loved what it had given him. "It's the only country where you're entitled to reinvent yourself," he told me in Bowral. "Look at me – I've reinvented myself as an author."

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/bestselling-author-bryce-courtenay-dies-aged-79-20121123-29xes.html