Let’s keep moving with “The Move”!!
A Quick Review of the last read: You Wouldn’t Be Dead for Quids by Robert G. Barrett
The two things you’d have to keep in mind when reading this book is that it’s the 80s and Les Norton is an absolutely true blue Aussie 😉
Being Aussie, it’s all about the idea of ‘fair go and you just gotta be able to take a piss at yourself. I reckon this is what this book is all about.
The book seriously surprised me; was completely off my rocker! It’s a lot more funny than I ever expected it to be (even though it’s mostly polictically incorrect), heaped with violence (again keep in mind that it’s the 80s in Kings Cross and Norton is a bouncer), lots of drinking (& drink driving! *grimace*), sex, and “fair dinkum” peppered throughout the book.
About Les:
…he was just a shade under six feet… he did have exceptionally long, think sinewy arms covered in bristly red hairs and at the end of them dangled two massive gnarled hands, the fingers literally like Fijian bananas, the knuckles like fifty cent coins…
As far as looks go Les wasn’t ugly, but he was no Robert Redford either. His scrubby red hair topped a pair of dark, brooding eyes set in a wide square face, and with his lantern jaw and the mandatory broken nose of a bouncer Les looked pretty much exactly what he was. His one outstanding feature was a pair of immensely bushy eyebrows, that caused the owner of the casino where Les worked to nickname him Yosemite Sam after a character in the Bugs Bunny show on TV. And whenever Les was about to go into action with his fists those big bushy eyebrows would bristle like the hairs on a dog’s back.
And lastly, just a sample of “politically incorrect” Aussie humor (LOL)
‘Turn it up Billy,’ replied Norton, ‘I wouldn’t be seen dead with that big fat thing.’
‘She’s not that fat.’
‘Not that fat? She looks like some one’s been up her arse with a bike-pump. If she ever fell over she’d rock herself to sleep trying to get back up.’
‘Now she’s not that bad.’
‘Not that bad. Have a look at her big fat head. She’s got more chins than the Hong Kong phone book. I reckon if there was a peeping-tom in her neighbourhood he’d pull her blind down.’
Next Up: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith (thanks, Heav!)
Entries will be received up to midnight of Sunday, 27th May 2012). To enter, just leave a comment with your name and contact details (it doesn’t have to be your email address – it could be your goodreads profile etc just as long as I can get a message to you). Only the winner will be contacted and you’ll have 48 hours to respond.
While you’re here, you can also nominate the next book I should read and therefore give away NEXT 😉
My list of books (alphabetical order of author’s last name):
- Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer
- The Harmony Silk Factory by Tash Aw
You Wouldn’t Be Dead for Quids by Robert G. Barrett- Murphy’s Law (Molly Murphy Mysteries 1) by Rhys Bowen
- Jane Slayre: The Literary Classic… with a blood-sucking twist by Charlotte Bronte & Sherri Browning Erwin
- Musk & Byrne by Fiona Capp (ARC Edition)
- The Cairo Diary by Maxime Chattam
- The Coffin Dancer by Jeffery Deaver
- Avalanche by Jack Drummond
- The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans
- Code to Zero by Ken Follett
- The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
- Shadows on the Aegean by Suzanne J Frank
- Sunrise of the Mediterranean by Suzanne J Frank
- Duet by Kimberley Freeman
- The Perfect Husband (Quincy & Rainie 1) by Lisa Gardner
- The Third Victim (Quincy & Rainie 2) by Lisa Gardner
- The Next Accident (Quincy & Rainie 3) by Lisa Gardner
- The Killing Hour (Quincy & Rainie 4) by Lisa Gardner
- Gone (Quincy & Rainie 5) by Lisa Gardner
- The Memoirs of Cleopatra by Margaret George
- Marathon Man by William Goldman
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith- Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
- Birdman by Mo Hayder
- Surrender by Sonya Hartnett
- 1788 by David Hill
- Arctic Chill by Arnaldur Indridason
- Voices by Arnaldur Indridason
Ironweed by William Kennedy- The Last 10 Seconds by Simon Kernick
- Highways to a War by Christopher J Koch
- Grace Notes by Bernard MacLaverty
- An Imaginary Life by David Malouf
- Legacy: A Novel by James A. Michener
- Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener
- The Official Fahrenheit 9/11 Reader by Michael Moore
- The Silent Country by Di Morrissey
- Secret Ones (Dream of Asarlai 1) by Nicole Murphy (ARC copy)
- Green Mountains by Bernard O’Reilly
- Thirteen Steps Down by Ruth Rendell
- A Sense of the World by Jason Roberts
- A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
- Tully by Paullina Simons
- Devil’s Corner by Lisa Scottoline
- A Bend in the Road by Nicholas Sparks
- Handpicked by Siew Siang Tay
- The Chimney Sweeper’s Boy by Barbara Vine
- The Aunt’s Story by Patrick White
- Culture is… :Australian Stories Across Cultures – An Anthology edited by Anne-Marie Smith
I suggest Pillars of the Earth to be next – it’s one of my favourite books and I’m always pimping it out to people 😛
I think this is an awesome thing to do. I get sad when people just throw out their books when they’re moving instead of passing them on.
Thanks, Kate! It’s a BIG one so it’s been sitting on my shelf for quite a while now. Be good to actually get it over with (I mean that in the nicest way) so thanks for the ‘encouragement’ 😀
Don’t enter me, since I already own Robert G Barret’s series but I am glad you enjoyed it. I love the whole series, unPC and all 🙂
Thanks for picking that one for me, Shelleyrea. I’ve picked it up a number of times only to put it away again so I’m glad I read it 🙂
And, btw, the one up for grabs now is ‘Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter’. Is this something that interests you?
Thanks for the chance to win!
natasha_donohoo_8 at hotmail dot com
Thanks for dropping by, Natasha.
Good Luck 😀
Hi Tien, Heav again, I’m waiting with baited breath for the book I won, thanks again. I just wanted to let you know that I read No.10 yesterday cause I worked a school fete and they had a book stall, {WooooHooooo!!!!!}. I ended up buying about 5 boxes of books, and have read 1/2 a box already. The Horse Whisperer, and Legacy: A Novel where among them. You will enjoy them both I think, I did and the robert redford movie just gave the characters faces, it didn’t detract from the novel at all.
Wow, sounds like you had quite a haul there! Did you buy the whole book stall? LOL. I probably couldn’t resist either!
Thanks for stopping by & commenting.
I’ve written your names on pieces of paper, shuffled and hid them behind the laptop for a random drawing – and the first one I grabbed was…. **drum rolls**
HEAV!!
Wow, truly unexpected. You’re one lucky star! I’ll be sending you a message via GR soon 🙂