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| What is the best Australian book you have read?
Posted: 10/31/2009 1:11:21 AM | I was bored a number of years ago and decided to read "The History of the AIF in the Great War" (all 12 volumes and took me a couple of years) edited by Charles Bean. A great piece of writing and widely acknowledged as being one of the best examples of military historical literature.
But for general reading - the best Australian book I've read is "A Fortunate Life" by AB Facey. I often use it as a reference point in my own life when things don't go the way I'd like. | |
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| What is the best Australian book you have read?
Posted: 10/31/2009 1:18:41 AM |
I really enjoyed Andrew McGahans 'Praise' It's rather a bleak novel that finishes pretty much where it starts so the characters don't really grow and the loose ends don't get tied up
I really enjoyed this book too, infact I was living at New Farm at the time he wrote this novel and used to walk past his flat and see him sitting at his desk/dining table writing (he lived on the corner of my street)
Reading through these posts, I am surprised by how many of these authors I HAVE read and enjoyed..hell I even enjoyed Tim Winton's Lockie Leonard series and his short stories are exceptional. Peter Carey is a favourite as is John Birmingham, David Malouf, Patrick White, I love Joanna Murray-Smith's plays,but my all-time favourite australian book is 'The Book Thief' by Markus Zusak
an excerpt
http://www.randomhouse.com/features/markuszusak/excerpt_bookthief.html
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| What is the best Australian book you have read?
Posted: 10/31/2009 2:03:22 AM | I really like;
"The Unknown terrorist", by Richard Flanagan
"the Slap" and "Loaded' both by Christos Tsoilkas
"The Arrival,"a graphic novel, with powerful and emotive illustrations/visuals, Sean Tan
"the Lost Thing" (a kids book but I liked it a lot.) by Sean Tan
Any books by Alex Miller, one is "Journey to The Stone Country" | |
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| What is the best Australian book you have read?
Posted: 11/1/2009 3:08:42 AM | yeh ,the Bob Barrett series with Les Norton... great reads...
start with "You Wouldn't be Dead for Quids"... a must...
I can't believe no one has attempted doing some film adaptions.... "The Godson" would be a good movie,I reckon.. or "the boys from Binjiwunyawunya",,,
I'd always imagined fatty vautin as Les, the red headed Qlder,,reading them back in the 80's.. he'd have been great...
and his brothers Dog..Grungle ,I think.... mean machine that one... | |
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| What is the best Australian book you have read?
Posted: 11/2/2009 6:08:49 PM | we had to read and study "My brother Jack" in grade 10 ,I think...
It went over my head... too deep for gr 10>>>>>> booooring!!! .... I wasn't the least bit interested in the story and only suffered through the smallish printed paperback because it was worth exam marks.... and hoped to pick up marks on other parts of the test...
I'm sure it IS a good aussie novel..I'm sure the adult teachers thought it was a good book.... but the thought of reading it again gives me the creeps....
Frank Hardy wrote "power without glory".. old "truthful jones" himself... | |
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| What is the best Australian book you have read?
Posted: 11/2/2009 7:09:07 PM | Are you accusing me of being boring or adult , neither of them are true by the way 
Frank Hardy may have been self serving but it was thought provoking never the less.
' A town like Alice' wasn't a bad read , I really need to check out some newer stuff!
Any recommendations? nothing too heavy though, I read for relaxation these days. | |
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| What is the best Australian book you have read?
Posted: 11/3/2009 3:38:52 AM | niether... I meant it was boring for a gr 10 kid... though the teachers (the adults) decided that it would be good for us to study.... they might have seen the literary brilliance in it, the historical lessons, etc... but I don't think many of my classmates , girls or boys, thought so....
maybe it was because my own brother was being drafted to go to Nam at the time... and I didn't want to hear about a wartime tale from past days.. or soldiers not coming home.... even the odd cover artwork of a slouch hatted digger on the cover turned me off the book...
.. a bad choice for the times, that's all...... not the book/writing, per se... | |
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| What is the best Australian book you have read?
Posted: 11/3/2009 3:31:08 PM | | They were strange times,weren't they? I remember a party just about every week for one of my friends whose number came up (couldn't win the casket though) None of us had any idea what was going on and I am appalled at my then ignorance, all I remember is pics of monks setting fire to themselves on tv. I hope your brother came through it ok . | |
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| What is the best Australian book you have read?
Posted: 11/3/2009 3:43:20 PM | ta... he was saved the plane trip over by old Gough/aussie voters.... thankfully...
I was marching in the demos in brissy... wagging it for my bro....
I was under no illusion as to what was going on over there, even in gr10....
school was going on outside the school books.. history was being made on the streets , people power works!! ..... | |
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| What is the best Australian book you have read?
Posted: 11/3/2009 4:18:21 PM | | I think that most Aussie writers are sort of self-consciously 'with it', like they're saying "OZ is up there with the rest of you!"... shame on me but I avoid Aussie books. However, I am going to ask my sister in Melbourne (sob), the name of her friend who made it through Mills and Boon's hard testing for writers for entry to their hall of fame as a writer and is no doubt making a lot of money. So you all can go and read Mills and Boon and be romantic and you will know it's an Australian who is making you sigh for the dark handsome hero. | |
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| What is the best Australian book you have read?
Posted: 11/3/2009 5:22:50 PM | ta... he was saved the plane trip over by old Gough/aussie voters.... thankfully...
As an old Gough/aussie voter ( and would do the same again) I am glad something positive came from my trip to the polls, twas my hippie days and with 3 kids in tow went in to town at Burleigh it was a time of change and the only time I remember actually being happy to vote.
Back on topic, Gough Whitlams biography is a must on my next trip to the library. | |
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| What is the best Australian book you have read?
Posted: 11/3/2009 11:28:13 PM | A fortunate Life - A.B Facey
anybody with a copy of this nine network movie based on the book I would loooooove to here from ya
I still think of this book 20 years on....or every time i think i got it tough
should be required reading at school. | |
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| What is the best Australian book you have read?
Posted: 11/4/2009 4:02:39 PM | "That eye the sky" Tim Winton...., in fact any of his formative stuff..., especially the short stories.
"Cloud Street" is possibly a minor classic..., a snapshot of W.A. back a few decades.
....., also in my valueless opinion..., "Dirt Music" was just ok..., and seemed to have an 'easy/cop out' ending and also seemed too deliberate and obvious as though written as a screenplay for the masses.
Also Dirt Music 'bugged me' because Mr. Winton seemed to have purloined a few "true stories and actual incidents" that occurred within the fishing communities and remote areas of both the west coast and the remote Kimberly coastlines...., and he seems to have simply woven them into a plausible yarn.
----I may well have been 'too close' to the subject matter.
I love a lot of Peter Carey books...., especially the early stuff.
Patrick White's and Alex Miller's books.
I wish I had more time to read...., my hammock under the peppies has moss growing on it.
....., and "Eucalyptus" by forgot his name...., ?
Non- fiction..., "Monash"..., by Roland Perry
"Hidden Agendas"..., John Pilger..., He's actually a pom..., but no matter. | |
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| What is the best Australian book you have read?
Posted: 11/4/2009 9:02:49 PM |
"Hidden Agendas"..., John Pilger..., He's actually a pom..., but no matter.
Nah......he's an Oz, mate. Just based or resides in London same deal with Rolf Harris.
I guess London's closer to all the action? Or maybe we were still a backwater dominion when it came to world affairs when he first started off his career cause he must be pushing 80 by now. Anyway, I also like his style of proper investigative journalism, no rock unturned, no door unopened.
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