No comments about 4000 Bowls of Rice: A Prisoner of War Comes Home.

No comments about Commandant of Solitude: The Journals of Captain Collet Barker 1828-1831.

4 comments about The Singing Line: Tracking the Australian Adventures of My Intrepid Victorian Ancestors.

1. An interesting effort by a distant, if not vague relation to an historically insignificant figure, albeit one from whom myths form with their customary accuracy. What bits of research and experience are fairly presented are harmed, in my view to no benefit, by gratuitous asides regarding her apparently long-suffering companion, family and (soon to be former?) friends. One must wonder what would have been the book had the author not worked for a newspaper, which one might suspect arranged its serialization gratis. The photos beg for the book guillotine.



2. I was fortunate enough to have the chance to live in Melbourne Australia for more than three years. I have experienced large parts of the journey Alice and her husband undertake in their quest to better understand her ancestor's experiences in creating the first telegraph line across Australia.

   I found the book to be very Alice Thomson-centric. She seems to glorify all aspects of her journey while continually placing Charles Todd higher and higher upon his pedestal. I was hoping she would rekindle some of my own memories of the Australia outback. However, Ms. Thomson invariably spends paragraph after paragraph describing her husband's illness or her own tiny adventures driving the Land Cruiser or walking around Coober Pedy. Her descriptions of the local towns and environs is terse, quick, and dull. I do not recommend this book to anyone except Alice Thomson and her immediate family.




3. I bought this book because I am interested in the early explorers and travellers in to the Australian hinterland and because I was about to travel to some of the same areas the author had visited. I found the bits about Todd, the man who came to Australia to look at the stars and ended up connecting Australia to the outside world by a telegraph wire, quite interesting. Although I thought perhaps Alice Thomson was a bit confused as to whether the story was about Alice Todd (the great grandmother for whom she was named) or Charles Todd who laid the line. And I could see where she was coming from in trying to relate the story of her own travels with her husband in the same area and the Todds adventures. But again I'm not sure she pulled it off exactly. By exaggerating her own hardships, she underplayed the genuine difficulties the Todds endured and both stories lost credibility - for me, anyway. But what I really disliked about this book was its horrid comments about Australians and the way they live, in these so-called remote areas. She makes it sound as though one hour out of Adelaide she was alone in the world with people almost unrecognisable as human beings. Spare us the "don't come the raw prawn", "strewth cobber" cliches (which are always only used by the English, anyway). And I hope she feels ashamed at the way she treated people who went out of their way to help her, for a few cheap laughs. In great frustration (it was so nearly a good book) I eventually threw it on the campfire, unfinished, at Lake Eyre, halfway along the Singing Line.



4. This was truly an amazing book. The author involves you in the very foundations that build up the Australian telegraph system - you become part of the history as she takes you through the life of her great-great-grandmother and grandfather. It reveals, once again, how many people gave up so much so that we can have a secure foundation in our society. Well worth owning.

2 comments about Dear Mem Fox, I Have Read All Your Books Even the Pathetic Ones: And Other Incidents in the Life of a Children's Book Author.

1. Having never read a Mem Fox book, it was the title of this book that caught my eye. For anyone who has fancied writing children's books, this is a must-read. It covers the writing and editing processes and provides insight into obtaining publishers and illustrators. Great book, as are all of Ms. Fox's books.



2. I enjoyed this quick read. Mem is such a clear and concise writer. It provides a entertaining overview of Mem's life experiences. Contrary to the other review on Amazon this book BARELY covers the process of getting a children's book published. I would estimate that 5 pages MAX of the over 200 pages is devoted to this so don't buy this book for this reason. Otherwise a worthwhile read if you wanted to know more about what goes on behind the scenes of writing a children's book.

No comments about King of the Australian Coast: The Work of Phillip Parker King in the Mermaid and Bathurst 1817-1822.

No comments about The Migrant.

No comments about School Days.

2 comments about Fanatic Heart - A Life of John Boyle O'Reilly 1844-1890.

1. i wish that the author had concentrated more on his career in boston and less on his time spent in australia , but overall this is a superb book for those unfamiliar with o'reilly. o'reilly was way ahead of his time in his social views and in his regard for oppressed groups and should definitely be remembered for that. the author has done a fine job. i greatly admire o'reilly -though i must admit i have a bias as i am related to him indirectly through his wife.



2. This was a well-written, detailed biography of a man who deserves to be more well known than he is. I agree with the other reveiwer that it did focus too much on his time in Australia nad not enough on his Boston career, but that is understandable since it was first published in Australia.

5 comments about Serpentine.

1. "Even as the Air France jet travels towards the Istanbul terminal, Andrea Darreau saw his half brother through the window. There was no mistaking Charles, dressed as he was in the sleekest navy blazer, a celebrity's dark glass; he looked like a Greek tycoon."
   
   This book captured me. It actually got under my skin allowing me to do or think nothing else but Serpentine. The character Charles Sobhraj is a man who comes up in a world that does not welcome him. As a child he remains unloved and unwanted, due to his illigetimacy, and his mother Song's marriage to another man. Charles' paternal father on the other hand wants nothing to do with him and marries again starting a new family. Poor Charles refuses to accept his father's dismissal, and keeps forever after him, baggering him, pleading his attention and love, all to no avail. His mother Song on the other hand is more concerned with her new life, and could not care less.
   Without any support coming from either of his parents Charles embarks on a life on his own, educating himself, and familiarizing himself with crime and how it works. He starts out with small crimes and then everything swells out in enormous proportions to the point where he is hiring staff to work with him. He gets incarcerated more times than he can count, as his criminal activity reaches across two continents; parts of Turkey, Iran, Paris, Delhi, Pakistan, and all the way to Hong Kong. Words cannot sufficiently describe the dangerous man Charles has become, but with his good looks, fine clothes, quick charisma and easy manner bit by bit, strangers who do not know him trust him and are lured into his web of dark murky waters.
   This is a true story and one can learn a lot from it, in protection oneself when traveling alone and otherwise.
   I highly recommended this work of non-fiction.
   Reviewed by Heather Marshall Negahdar ( SUGAR-CANE 08/05/07)



2. By far my favorite true crime book. I have read it several times and it is one of my favorite gifts for fans of true crime writing. Mr. Thompson delivers every nuance with exactitude, revealing a cunning, evil creature who almost got away with it all.



3. I read this book when it first came out and it was scary because Charles Sobraj could manipulate his way into anything and he was extremely dangerous and still fairly young. The book is difficult to put down as the reader is sucked into Sobraj's world in the ultimate study of a cunning mind. After you read the book you will never trust anybody again!



4. An oldie but a goodie.If you are into adventure travel writing and have a strong stomach, this is a read for you. This tale of international intrigue and gruesome deviancy reads like a novel and you'll wish it were. The story of a true sociopath who preys upon college students out to see the world will make make your hair stand on end.My mother made this mandatory reading when my brothers and I were setting out on our world travels. A cautionary tale indeed.



5. I picked this up soon after it came out and I was in Kathmandu, Nepal at the time. It was one of the locales of the book and had me looking over my shoulder with queasy fear. Why is this deliciously readable? THE WRITING. The writing. The writing. Thomas Thompson is a superb writer with a marvelous ear, he builds suspense into a paragraph or even a single sentence by the arrangement of words.
   
   There is an underlying uneasiness we all feel flying around the world, totally uprooted from the familiar, surrounded by people who don't speak our language. The world of jets, international hotel, hired drivers and touts, and sometimes vice, smuggling and even murder. Thompson has captured that world better than anyone has before or since The world of Charles Subraj.

No comments about Six Months Off: An American Family's Australian Adventure.