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Advantages: A wonderfully written heart wrenching story
Disadvantages: Based on true story and is true of our modern history

I have both read the book and seen the film of this story but have found the book is the best version of this true story. The book goes into alot more detail than the film and you get more of an insight of the true feelings and emotions of the main character - Frank McCourt a young boy growing up in a poverty stricken Ireland within a family that consists of a drunken father who squanders their little come by money on alcohol and a depressed and ...
...sexual favours to support her family. He has to endure the hardship and indignity that goes along with this and watch the heartache unfold as his mother loses her children to starvation and illness as a direct result of the poverty that they daily face. Although this could have turned out to be a sombre heavy going book he has managed to lighten the mood with many humourous moments which are told with great wit. Even though they are still a result ... Read review

Advantages: Compelling story, educational, well written
Disadvantages: None that I found

...* * I read Anne Frank's Diary as a teenager, when I was around the same age as she was when she wrote it. Now my interest in her has been reawakened. This time, my daughter is around the age Anne was when she wrote her diary in the Secret Annex in Amsterdam, where she remained hidden for just over two years. The reason for my latest interest in Anne Frank - and three of my children are also fascinated by her life - is the recently televised two-part ...
...on a 1998 book called Anne Frank - The Biography written by Melissa Muller. I ordered the book from the library and have just finished reading the 300 pages or so. I feel this biography is probably the best researched and most historically accurate story of Anne's short life. I always feel sceptical of biographies. They often seem to throw up more questions than answers and often paint such an incomplete or obsequious picture, that their value is ... Read review

Advantages: Evocative of more glamorous times
Disadvantages: Shallow

Perhaps I'm going to be a little harsh on this book, after the joy of reading his brother Frank's books. At times I was reminded of the great david Niven's books "The moon's a balloon" and "Bring on the empty horses" in a similar autobiographical style, but when you're not that famous namedropping is so passe. Content I got pissed, I got fucked and I travelled; end of story. Yes I was harsh, there are some quite humorous moments and yes there ... Read review

Advantages: Totally factual
Disadvantages: You already know the ending

...their goal was to produce a book that respected the memories of those involved while explaining the awful predicament they were placed in, then this achieves it and much, much more. Totally factual, fascinating, absorbing and sometimes shocking, we see the start of the great romance between Alexandra and Nicholas before their marriage. They corresponded daily and kept detailed diaries throughout their lives together which covered many events, both ...
...that he wouldn't die with a pinch of salt, believing them to be the fevered imaginings of of revolutionists, but I was wrong. And this book showed me how wrong I had been in my preconceptions about the time in history, the family, the revolutionists and their leaders. About Russia in general, really. The schools should find a way of introducing this book into the History lessons - there wouldn't be a better teacher. Detailed reviews are obviously ... Read review

Advantages: Gripping, informative
Disadvantages: May be found quite hard going

Carla Van Raay's autobiography "Gods Callgirl" details the life of a naive, immature girl, then woman who is devoted to God but goes from obedient convent girl to sexual prostitute over the course of her life, but remains as naive as ever. This life story is divided into three parts and develops the tale of this Dutch girl's life over the course of the book. Part one examines the life of a child abused by her father, yet finding she felt abandoned ...
...God from a very young age. As a school girl she idolising the convent and her sole ambition in life is to serve God as a nun in one of Australia's many convents. As an early teenager feeling unloved at home by her family yet supporting her mother in everyday chores and childcare of her brothers and sister she found herself believing she was a product of the devil. A problem no confession could speak of, and no action could heal. Part two follows ... Read review