Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #255933 in Books
• Published on: 1985-09-26
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Customer Reviews

A Truely Great Read
I bought this book when it first was released. After reading it, I bought about 20 copies to give to friends for Christmas. It is a great book. Without giving away the true story, it is about the hard life of a man, told by himself as though you are sitting at his knee as a grandchild. This is a story of a 'ordinary man' who thought of himself as such; but he was really a hero of his generation, and actually LIVED history.

A refreshingly honest tale of an ordinary man's life
This is a wonderful book. Facey is a fantastic narrator who leaves you hungry to read more. He lives through both world wars, and he records his thoughts honestly.

It is a great book, as it shows the Australian struggle during the time period. Plus the events that Facey lives through are dramatic. This book does not have one boring page in it, as Facey had such an interesting life.

As a result of Facey's honesty, the book will make you laugh, cry and gasp at his experiences. It is a tale of endurance and triumph.

My lecturer recommended this to us as "the greatest souvenir you could take from Australia", and he is certainly right.

Not A Fortunate Life, An Amazing Life
If I could I would give this book 4.5 stars. After reading this book I thought Albert Facey had an AMAZING life. From the age of 8 he did everything there was to do, he experienced every type of situation possible, from having his mother abandon him, an employer whip him, getting lost in the bush for over a week and finding the perfect wife and having a family. He lived a very full life, especially career wise (not suprising considering his working life started when he was 8) and travelled all over the country with one job or another.

I really liked the chapters about his time in the army (before and during WWI) as they reminded me of the letters my Great Grandad Moore (father's mother's father) sent to his family, in fact if I hadn't known better I would have thought they were the written by the same man. I am glad he was able to live to see his book published and made a bestseller as your family will always tell you your creation is great, but the only real way to know is from strangers paying you hard earned money for you work.

The only problem I had with it was that he went into a bit too much detail about the mundane stuff. He could have cut out many sentences about having cups of tea or what he had to eat (how did he remember that clearly after 50 years or more anyway) and put more detail into the last 20 or so years of his life. More information about his children for example. I wonder what he could have written if he'd had the time and skills earlier on in his life.