Books that stay with you

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

Cardiff-based..."The Hiding Place". Trezza Azzapardi uses real Cardiff locations (including where my mum lived as a young child) to create as bleak a story as you will ever read. No wonder my mum always said "you can play with who you like but not the Maltese". A truly stomach churning ending.
Turns out one branch of the family is of Maltese extraction, something I found out only last year (thought they were Italian).

The sultana family in Cardiff are Maltese I believe

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Devils Guard by George Robert Elford

Quite a controversial book in which it is claimed by the author that the story was told to him first hand by former Waffen SS Partizan Jaeger Kommando Captain Hans Wagemuller. The story goes that Wagemuller led his men out of the Eastern front fighting partisans back to Germany/Switzerland where he and eventually around 900 former SS soldiers were enlisted into a Nazi Battalion as part of the French Foreign Legion and sent to Vietnam to fight against the Vietnam Minh.
They are alleged to have ferocious and brutal tactics which made the French and the locals afraid of them.
The story is full of neo-Nazi propaganda and appears a work of fiction.
Wagemuller is reported to have been still alive in 1980 but disappeared off the radar subsequently.

It as in the top 10 book list of US servicemen in the First Gulf War and the only military book in that list.

It’s an interesting and thought provoking read

Worth a dip

[splott parker]

The sultana family in Cardiff are Maltese I believe

,

A walk through any Maltese town will throw up many names on shop fronts, sides of vans etc familiar to Cardiffians. Just had a look a popular Maltese surnames and a bit surprised how many were the surnames of schoolday contempories, Borg, Camilleri, Farrugia, Galea, Micallef, Grech, Attard, Spiteri, Azzopardi, Lia, Xuereb, Xiberras, Caruana, Pace, Debono, Portelli, Grima, Bussutil, Garcia, Psaila, Cachia, Bonello, Darmsnin, Tanti, Brincat and the infamous Callus. All names from my Lady Mary days, should have been called Lady Malta!!

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[cyril evans awaydays]

To Kill a Mocking Bird helped changed my perspective on the equal value of human life whilst living in a place where, at the time 99.5% of people were white.

Catch 22 The gratitude that I have never had to test myself in the theatre of war but the fear I might end up like one of the key characters.

I don't think either author had much more to say after those novels, but in reality didn't need too!

[lisvaneblue]

' The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet' by David Mitchell.

Incredible novel about Dutch traders in Japan late 18th century

[Whisperer]

I

[Whisperer]

With all respect your terminology is inadequate for someone who sacked the book off without finishing it . . . What is a 'crock' anyway?

It’s not inadequate when I lived the life he was badly attempting to write about....oh and a crock is a cooking pot.
Read cupcake Brown then you’ll find out what taking drugs is about

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

,

A walk through any Maltese town will throw up many names on shop fronts, sides of vans etc familiar to Cardiffians. Just had a look a popular Maltese surnames and a bit surprised how many were the surnames of schoolday contempories, Borg, Camilleri, Farrugia, Galea, Micallef, Grech, Attard, Spiteri, Azzopardi, Lia, Xuereb, Xiberras, Caruana, Pace, Debono, Portelli, Grima, Bussutil, Garcia, Psaila, Cachia, Bonello, Darmsnin, Tanti, Brincat and the infamous Callus. All names from my Lady Mary days, should have been called Lady Malta!!

,

Rita Sultana was in my class in school , her older brother was a city fan who died a few years ago Peggy Furrugia was from a big Grangetown family if I remember

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

To Kill a Mocking Bird helped changed my perspective on the equal value of human life whilst living in a place where, at the time 99.5% of people were white.

Catch 22 The gratitude that I have never had to test myself in the theatre of war but the fear I might end up like one of the key characters.

I don't think either author had much more to say after those novels, but in reality didn't need too!

Indeed

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

' The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet' by David Mitchell.

Incredible novel about Dutch traders in Japan late 18th century

I know they went to the east indies but didn't realise they hit Japan

[az city]

No specific order:

A History of the World in 10.5 Chapters - Julian Barnes
The Gift of Stones, Harvest - Jim Crace
Notes from a Small Island - Bill Bryson
Zorba the Greek - Nikos Kanatzakis
Far From the Madding Crowd, Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man - Dashiell Hammett
The Natural, God's Grace - Bernard Malamud
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
Animal farm - George Orwell
The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
God is Not Great - Christopher Hitchens
His Bloody Project - Graeme Macrae Burnet

[IanD]

Rita Sultana was in my class in school , her older brother was a city fan who died a few years ago Peggy Furrugia was from a big Grangetown family if I remember

Plenty of Azzopardis in Cardiff, at least one of whom is a City fan.

[tricks]

Joseph Heller wrote several really good books after Catch 22. His work is always targeted, funny, painful, political, social. But mainly makes me laugh while reading.