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Thread: The Power of One - Bryce Courtenay

      
   
  1. #1
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    Default The Power of One - Bryce Courtenay

    I've recently read this book, more by accident than anything else, and I have to say that I was hooked from the start! It was written like 21 years ago, and has probably been in more than one school's reading list or English setwork, and for good reason!

    Stolen from Wiki:
    Quote Originally Posted by Wikipedia
    The Power of One is a novel by Bryce Courtenay, first published in 1989. Set in South Africa during the 1930s and 1940s, it tells the story of an Anglo-African boy who, through the course of the story, acquires the nickname of Peekay.


    ...

    It is written from the first person perspective, with Peekay narrating (as an adult, looking back) and trusting the reader with his thoughts and feelings, as opposed to a detailed description of places and account of actions.
    Once I finished the book I realised that it was on the '101 books to read before you die' book list, so I get to tick another one off the list! (Almost like a lifetime progress bar )

    Optical Vortex: A corkscrew of light, with darkness at the center..


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    where is this book list?
    Lazy lazy lazy.

    I want references or I'll get upset cos now I gotto Google. My life is busy enough trolling forums ;p

    ---------- Post added at 04:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:22 PM ----------

    Yeah it was an awesome read. Bought Tandia after wards but it didn't read quite the same for me. Didn't get to finish it and now its MIA
    Last edited by Stool; 19th July 2010 at 05:47 PM.

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    thx sintax... see vorty was that so hard?

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    There are two lists here for you to check out..

    http://www.wargeeks.org/showthread.p...868#post176868

    Happy, chair?
    Last edited by Vortex; 20th July 2010 at 08:13 AM.

    Optical Vortex: A corkscrew of light, with darkness at the center..


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    I've actually read a few of the less likely ones.


    The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
    The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
    Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
    To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
    The Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
    The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
    The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
    Life of Pi - Yann Martel
    The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (what this does on the list I have no idea)
    The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
    Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
    Spud - John van de Ruit
    The Power of One - Bryce Courtenay
    The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
    Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis de Bernieres
    Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts
    Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
    Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
    Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
    The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
    One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
    Disgrace - J. M. Coetzee
    My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoult
    The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
    Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
    Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
    Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett Definitely a must read
    Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
    Cry, the Beloved Country - Alan Paton
    The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
    A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
    The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time - Mark Haddon
    Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
    Atonement - Ian McEwan
    Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
    The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
    The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje
    Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy rather not
    Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
    Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
    The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
    I Know This Much is True - Wally Lamb
    A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
    Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
    War And Peace - Leo Tolstoy see above
    Clan of the Cave Bear - Jean M. Auel
    The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera
    The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
    The Secret History - Donna Tartt
    Possession - A. S. Byatt
    Perfume - Patrick Suskind
    The House of the Spirits - Isabel Allende
    Chocolat - Joanne Harris
    The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency - Alexander McCall Smith
    Q & A - Vikas Swarup
    Dune - Frank Herbert
    Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
    Fugitive Pieces - Anne Michaels
    River God - Wilbur Smith
    Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
    Lord of the Flies - William Golding
    The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis have it, but haven't read it yet
    Mort - Terry Pratchett
    Crime and Punishment - Feodor Dostoyevsky
    The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood
    East of Eden - John Steinbeck
    The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
    The Other Boleyn Girl - Philippa Gregory
    The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas - John Boyne
    The Prince of Tides - Pat Conroy
    Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
    Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
    The Shipping News - E. Annie Proulx
    Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
    Animal Farm - George Orwell
    The Red Tent - Anita Diamant
    Watership Down - Richard Adams
    Magician - Raymond E Feist
    Middlemarch - George Eliot
    The Day of the Jackal - Frederick Forsyth
    We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver
    The Magus - John Fowles
    The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
    Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk
    The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
    The Shell Seekers - Rosamunde Pilcher
    The Colour Purple - Alice Walker
    The Beach House - James Patterson
    Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak
    Kringe in 'n Bos - Dalene Matthee
    The World according to Garp - John Irving
    Northen Lights - Phillip Pullman
    Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
    Shades - Marguerite Poland
    Kane and Abel - Jeffrey Archer He's written better stuff than that
    Fiela se kind - Dalene Matthee
    Story of an African Farm - Olive Schreiner
    Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
    The Magic Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton
    Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
    Winnie-the-Pooh - A.A. Milne


    Hmm, 17 and counting...
    It is not the responsibility of a defender to leave the objective unguarded just so his opponent sucks less.



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    Sorry Rainy - moved the list..

    Hmm - I must get that Pillars of the Earth book and try it..

    Optical Vortex: A corkscrew of light, with darkness at the center..


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    Quote Originally Posted by Vortex View Post
    I've recently read this book, more by accident than anything else, and I have to say that I was hooked from the start! It was written like 21 years ago, and has probably been in more than one school's reading list or English setwork, and for good reason!

    Stolen from Wiki:


    Once I finished the book I realised that it was on the '101 books to read before you die' book list, so I get to tick another one off the list! (Almost like a lifetime progress bar )
    Wait what?!?!?! you have only read this now?!?!?!
    No man its one of my favorite books of all time. you should read Tandia next, also by Bryce Courtenay. Its not as good but it wraps up the story nicely. His writing is brilliant.


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    Quote Originally Posted by RocketBoy View Post
    Wait what?!?!?! you have only read this now?!?!?!
    No man its one of my favorite books of all time. you should read Tandia next, also by Bryce Courtenay. Its not as good but it wraps up the story nicely. His writing is brilliant.
    Well I'm glad that the story can be finished off - I was getting very close to the end of the book and getting increasingly nervous that it wasn't going to come to any conclusion! Fortunately there is a fairly good end to it, but I still want more!

    Optical Vortex: A corkscrew of light, with darkness at the center..


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    I've recently decided not to like fiction with some sort of political message or social lesson. Until I'm mature enough to appreciate them. So I put "Cry the beloved country" in the back of the shelf. For example.

    I opened this book and got the idea there's some sort of political or social lesson in it. Then I saw the words Anglo-African on the back and I put it down immediately. Your glowing review might get me to reconsider if you can tell me I'm wrong. Otherwise I'll just leave this for when I'm mature enough too.

    I got the same feeling when I opened Spud in Exclusive so I skipped that too. That is also on the list. Was I wrong on that one too?

    Rainy if you want to make progress on the list I could borrow you an English copy of "Fiela se kind" that I have lying around (long story). It's lost some in translation but it'll allow you to finish the list without learning the language. That also has a political colour, more in English than Afrikaans, but I'd read it already when I decided I wasn't mature enough for political fiction.
    Last edited by GeroW4lll; 20th July 2010 at 06:39 PM.

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