Escape by some Aussie fella called David Mcmillen. About some bloke caught smuggling herion from Thailand. Only halfway through the book, but it's very good. Oh yeah forgot to mention he's the only Westener to escape from the Bangkok Hilton.Nowhere near as good as Midnight express or Pappilon, but well worth a read. And yes i know there isn't a book of the week, but there should be.
Feck Fred !!! you must be the the best read gezzer in Northolt ............
this post is going to ruin your cred with, Donna and Stella and I see Olive has now joined your possy
With books like this one, I find that I cannot get past the notion: '' What a dumb-ass !!!
drugs and Thailand........ HELLLLLLLLL NO !!!
.......he clearly could not read BEFORE his arrest ......why can he write after it ??????
My recommendation is:
Jon Krakauer's Where Men win Glory
about Pat Tillman the guy who joined the army and turned down a contact to play Pro football .............gives a good handle on Afganistan
And yes .. there should be a BOTW
Great idea for a book of the week section.
(missed you last week Kcat, darling.)
I second Mr Freddy and Mr FrenchFox on that. I think it is an absolutely terrific idea. I fly a lot, and often find myself aimlessly walking about the bookstore looking for something to read. It would be good to have something to actually look for ex-ante
Quote from: FC Silver Fox on February 06, 2010, 12:29:41 PM
Great idea for a book of the week section.
(missed you last week Kcat, darling.)
You should aim between the shoulder blades, hard to miss....sorry I mean DVD of the week. Film of the week could be incorporated? I am too slow to read a book a week :)
Think this sounds like a great idea - I've picked up a few good suggestions from TIFF in the past. Not that I need any more to choose from, my reading pile is too big already, but I'm always interested in hearing what people think.
good recent reads:
Non-fiction
David Remnick: King of the world (bio of Mohammad Ali, bits on Liston, Patterson, etc - really great stuff)
Paul Kingsnorth: Real England: The battle against the bland
Phil Ball: Morbo, a History of Spanish football
Anything by Tom Hodgkinson: How to be Free, how to be Idle, etc
Fiction's generally too personal (we all have very different ideas) but there's a lot of good stuff out there.
If anyone's stuck for ideas, I'm keeping track of reading since January 2009 here: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/richallen7 (http://www.librarything.com/catalog/richallen7)
Rich - Experience has shown me that when talking about fiction (or music, football, films and TV) I am right and everyone else is wrong. I'm yet to discover an exception to this rule. ;)
An excellent read just out in paperback is "The Next Hundred Years" by George Friedman. It's his predictions for, you guessed it, the next 100 years. He runs an outfit called Strafor which specializes in strategic planning for large corporations and some governments. He bases his predictions on economics and history. He is not some bloke just pontificating but puts a lot of factual thought into it. Quite good.
Oh!....and Freddy can read. Who woulda thought? ;D
