Books for blokes...
International Men's Health week is 15-21 June. Reading is an essential part of staying healthy, so here are some reading suggestions of books for blokes to read.
Adventure
Quick by Steve Worland
Sent undercover with an unwilling French partner, Billy is thrust into the glamorous world of international motor racing as the diamond heists continue. But as Billy closes in on the thieves a far more sinister threat is revealed. With the fate of a city and the lives of half a million people in the balance, Billy will need to drive like never before to stop the worse act of terror since 9/11.
Book to movie
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
A gripping thriller set in Moscow, 1953. Under Stalin's terrifying regime families live in fear. When the
all-powerful State claims there is no such thing as crime, who dares disagree?
An ambitious secret police officer, Leo Demidov has spent his career arresting anyone who steps out of line. Suddenly his world is turned upside down when he uncovers evidence of a killer at large. Now, with only his wife at his side, Leo must risk both their lives to save the lives of others.
Inspired by a real-life investigation, Child 44 is a relentless story of love, hope and bravery in a totalitarian world. It is a thriller unlike any you have ever read.
Contemporary fiction
A short history of Richard Kline by Amanda Lohrey
I woke with a gasp. And lay in the dark, open-mouthed, holding my breath. That feeling... that feeling was indescribable. For a moment I had felt as if I were falling... falling into bliss". All his life, Richard Kline has been haunted by a sense that something is lacking. He envies the ease with which others slip into contented suburban life or the pursuit of wealth. As he moves into middle age, Richard grows angry, cynical, depressed. But then a strange event, a profound epiphany, awakens him to a different way of life. He finds himself on a quest, almost against his will, to resolve the 'divine discontent' he has suffered since childhood. From pharmaceuticals to New Age therapies to finding a guru, Richard's journey dramatises the search for meaning in today's world. This audacious novel is an exploration of masculinity, the mystical, and our very human yearning for something more. It is hypnotic, nuanced and Amanda Lohrey's finest offering yet - a pilgrim's progress for the here and now.
Fantasy/Sci Fi
Inside a silver box by Walter Mosley
"Two people brought together by a horrific act are united in a common cause by the powers of the Silver Box. The two join to protect humanity from destruction by an alien race, the Laz, hell-bent on regaining control over the Silver Box, the most destructive and powerful tool in the universe. The Silver Box will stop at nothing to prevent its former master from returning to being, even if it means finishing the earth itself"
Humour
Analogue Men by Nick Earls
Andrew Van Fleet is 49 and feeling 50 closing in. He's bailed out of his private equity job for something that'll let him spend more time at home, but the house is overrun by iPads and teenage hormones and conversations that have moved on without him. Plus his ailing father is now lodged in the granny flat, convalescing from surgery and with his scrappy bulldog in tow. And then there's Brian Brightman, the expensive fading star at the radio station Andrew's signed up to manage, whose every broadcast offers fresh trouble. He's 49 too and, like Andrew, starting to wonder if the twenty-first century might prove to be his second best.
Biography
Into thin air by Jon Krakauer
When Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt. Everest in the early afternoon of May 10, 1996, he hadn’t slept in fifty-seven hours and was reeling from the brain-altering effects of oxygen depletion. As he turned to begin his long, dangerous descent from 29,028 feet, twenty other climbers were still pushing doggedly toward the top. No one had noticed that the sky had begun to fill with clouds. Six hours later and 3,000 feet lower, in 70-knot winds and blinding snow, Krakauer collapsed in his tent, freezing, hallucinating from exhaustion and hypoxia, but safe. The following morning, he learned that six of his fellow climbers hadn’t made it back to their camp and were desperately struggling for their lives. When the storm finally passed, five of them would be dead, and the sixth so horribly frostbitten that his right hand would have to be amputated.
War and Military
The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers
"The war tried to kill us in the spring," begins this breathtaking account of friendship and loss. In Al Tafar, Iraq, twenty-one-year old Private Bartle and eighteen-year-old Private Murphy cling to life as their platoon launches a bloody battle for the city. In the endless days that follow, the two young soldiers do everything to protect each other from the forces that press in on every side: the insurgents, physical fatigue, and the mental stress that comes from constant danger. Bound together since basic training when their tough-as-nails Sergeant ordered Bartle to watch over Murphy, the two have been dropped into a war neither is prepared for. As reality begins to blur into a hazy nightmare, Murphy becomes increasingly unmoored from the world around him and Bartle takes impossible actions.
True Crime
Three crooked kings by Matthew Condon
Three Crooked Kings is the shocking true story of Queensland and how a society was shaped by almost half a century of corruption. At its core is Terence Murray Lewis, deposed and jailed former police commissioner. From his entry into the force in 1949, Lewis rose through the ranks, becoming part of the so-called Rat Pack with detectives Glendon Patrick Hallahan and Tony Murphy under the guiding influence of Commissioner Frank Bischof.
The next four decades make for a searing tale of cops and killings, bagmen and blackmail, and sin and sleaze that exposes a police underworld which operated from Queensland and into New South Wales. This gripping book exposes the final pieces of the puzzle, unearths new evidence on cold cases, and explores the pivotal role that whistleblower Shirley Brifman, prostitute and brothel owner, played until her sudden death.
Crime and thriller
Close your eyes by Michael Robotham
I close my eyes and feel my heart begin racingSomeone is comingThey're going to find me A mother and her teenage daughter are found brutally murdered in a remote farmhouse, one defiled by multiple stab wounds and the other left lying like Sleeping Beauty waiting for her Prince.
A mother and her teenage daughter are found brutally murdered in a remote farmhouse, one defiled by multiple stab wounds and the other left lying like Sleeping Beauty waiting for her Prince. Reluctantly, clinical psychologist Joe O'Loughlin is drawn into the investigation when a former student, calling himself the 'Mindhunter', trading on Joe's name, has jeopardised the police inquiry by leaking details to the media and stirring up public anger.
With no shortage of suspects and tempers beginning to fray, Joe discover links between these murders to a series of brutal attacks where the men and women are choked unconscious and the letter 'A' is carved into their foreheads.
As the case becomes ever more complex, nothing is quite what it seems and soon Joe's fate, and that of those closest to him, become intertwined with a merciless, unpredictable killer . . .
History
Gallipoli by FitzSimons, Peter
On 25 April 1915, Allied forces landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula in present-day Turkey to secure the sea route between Britain and France in the west and Russia in the east. After eight months of terrible fighting, they would fail. Turkey regards the victory to this day as a defining moment in its history, a heroic last stand in the defence of the nation's Ottoman Empire. But, counter-intuitively, it would signify something perhaps even greater for the defeated Australians and New Zealanders involved: the birth of their countries' sense of nationhood. Now approaching its centenary, the Gallipoli campaign, commemorated each year on Anzac Day, reverberates with importance as the origin and symbol of Australian and New Zealand identity. As such, the facts of the battle, which was minor against the scale of the First World War and cost less than a sixth of the Australian deaths on the Western Front, are often forgotten or obscured. Peter FitzSimons, with his trademark vibrancy and expert melding of writing and research, recreates the disaster as experienced by those who endured it or perished in the attempt.
Adventure
Sent undercover with an unwilling French partner, Billy is thrust into the glamorous world of international motor racing as the diamond heists continue. But as Billy closes in on the thieves a far more sinister threat is revealed. With the fate of a city and the lives of half a million people in the balance, Billy will need to drive like never before to stop the worse act of terror since 9/11.
Book to movie
Child 44 by Tom Rob SmithA gripping thriller set in Moscow, 1953. Under Stalin's terrifying regime families live in fear. When the
all-powerful State claims there is no such thing as crime, who dares disagree?
An ambitious secret police officer, Leo Demidov has spent his career arresting anyone who steps out of line. Suddenly his world is turned upside down when he uncovers evidence of a killer at large. Now, with only his wife at his side, Leo must risk both their lives to save the lives of others.
Inspired by a real-life investigation, Child 44 is a relentless story of love, hope and bravery in a totalitarian world. It is a thriller unlike any you have ever read.
Contemporary fiction
A short history of Richard Kline by Amanda Lohrey
I woke with a gasp. And lay in the dark, open-mouthed, holding my breath. That feeling... that feeling was indescribable. For a moment I had felt as if I were falling... falling into bliss". All his life, Richard Kline has been haunted by a sense that something is lacking. He envies the ease with which others slip into contented suburban life or the pursuit of wealth. As he moves into middle age, Richard grows angry, cynical, depressed. But then a strange event, a profound epiphany, awakens him to a different way of life. He finds himself on a quest, almost against his will, to resolve the 'divine discontent' he has suffered since childhood. From pharmaceuticals to New Age therapies to finding a guru, Richard's journey dramatises the search for meaning in today's world. This audacious novel is an exploration of masculinity, the mystical, and our very human yearning for something more. It is hypnotic, nuanced and Amanda Lohrey's finest offering yet - a pilgrim's progress for the here and now.
Fantasy/Sci FiInside a silver box by Walter Mosley
"Two people brought together by a horrific act are united in a common cause by the powers of the Silver Box. The two join to protect humanity from destruction by an alien race, the Laz, hell-bent on regaining control over the Silver Box, the most destructive and powerful tool in the universe. The Silver Box will stop at nothing to prevent its former master from returning to being, even if it means finishing the earth itself"
Humour
Analogue Men by Nick Earls
Andrew Van Fleet is 49 and feeling 50 closing in. He's bailed out of his private equity job for something that'll let him spend more time at home, but the house is overrun by iPads and teenage hormones and conversations that have moved on without him. Plus his ailing father is now lodged in the granny flat, convalescing from surgery and with his scrappy bulldog in tow. And then there's Brian Brightman, the expensive fading star at the radio station Andrew's signed up to manage, whose every broadcast offers fresh trouble. He's 49 too and, like Andrew, starting to wonder if the twenty-first century might prove to be his second best.Biography
Into thin air by Jon Krakauer
When Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt. Everest in the early afternoon of May 10, 1996, he hadn’t slept in fifty-seven hours and was reeling from the brain-altering effects of oxygen depletion. As he turned to begin his long, dangerous descent from 29,028 feet, twenty other climbers were still pushing doggedly toward the top. No one had noticed that the sky had begun to fill with clouds. Six hours later and 3,000 feet lower, in 70-knot winds and blinding snow, Krakauer collapsed in his tent, freezing, hallucinating from exhaustion and hypoxia, but safe. The following morning, he learned that six of his fellow climbers hadn’t made it back to their camp and were desperately struggling for their lives. When the storm finally passed, five of them would be dead, and the sixth so horribly frostbitten that his right hand would have to be amputated.
War and Military
The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers
"The war tried to kill us in the spring," begins this breathtaking account of friendship and loss. In Al Tafar, Iraq, twenty-one-year old Private Bartle and eighteen-year-old Private Murphy cling to life as their platoon launches a bloody battle for the city. In the endless days that follow, the two young soldiers do everything to protect each other from the forces that press in on every side: the insurgents, physical fatigue, and the mental stress that comes from constant danger. Bound together since basic training when their tough-as-nails Sergeant ordered Bartle to watch over Murphy, the two have been dropped into a war neither is prepared for. As reality begins to blur into a hazy nightmare, Murphy becomes increasingly unmoored from the world around him and Bartle takes impossible actions.True Crime
Three crooked kings by Matthew Condon
Three Crooked Kings is the shocking true story of Queensland and how a society was shaped by almost half a century of corruption. At its core is Terence Murray Lewis, deposed and jailed former police commissioner. From his entry into the force in 1949, Lewis rose through the ranks, becoming part of the so-called Rat Pack with detectives Glendon Patrick Hallahan and Tony Murphy under the guiding influence of Commissioner Frank Bischof.The next four decades make for a searing tale of cops and killings, bagmen and blackmail, and sin and sleaze that exposes a police underworld which operated from Queensland and into New South Wales. This gripping book exposes the final pieces of the puzzle, unearths new evidence on cold cases, and explores the pivotal role that whistleblower Shirley Brifman, prostitute and brothel owner, played until her sudden death.
Crime and thriller
Close your eyes by Michael RobothamI close my eyes and feel my heart begin racingSomeone is comingThey're going to find me A mother and her teenage daughter are found brutally murdered in a remote farmhouse, one defiled by multiple stab wounds and the other left lying like Sleeping Beauty waiting for her Prince.
A mother and her teenage daughter are found brutally murdered in a remote farmhouse, one defiled by multiple stab wounds and the other left lying like Sleeping Beauty waiting for her Prince. Reluctantly, clinical psychologist Joe O'Loughlin is drawn into the investigation when a former student, calling himself the 'Mindhunter', trading on Joe's name, has jeopardised the police inquiry by leaking details to the media and stirring up public anger.
With no shortage of suspects and tempers beginning to fray, Joe discover links between these murders to a series of brutal attacks where the men and women are choked unconscious and the letter 'A' is carved into their foreheads.
As the case becomes ever more complex, nothing is quite what it seems and soon Joe's fate, and that of those closest to him, become intertwined with a merciless, unpredictable killer . . .
History
Gallipoli by FitzSimons, Peter
On 25 April 1915, Allied forces landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula in present-day Turkey to secure the sea route between Britain and France in the west and Russia in the east. After eight months of terrible fighting, they would fail. Turkey regards the victory to this day as a defining moment in its history, a heroic last stand in the defence of the nation's Ottoman Empire. But, counter-intuitively, it would signify something perhaps even greater for the defeated Australians and New Zealanders involved: the birth of their countries' sense of nationhood. Now approaching its centenary, the Gallipoli campaign, commemorated each year on Anzac Day, reverberates with importance as the origin and symbol of Australian and New Zealand identity. As such, the facts of the battle, which was minor against the scale of the First World War and cost less than a sixth of the Australian deaths on the Western Front, are often forgotten or obscured. Peter FitzSimons, with his trademark vibrancy and expert melding of writing and research, recreates the disaster as experienced by those who endured it or perished in the attempt.