Anthonyve, I've got lots of them. Cape Upstart is between Ayr & Bowen. The Japanese Submarines used to water there during WW11. A few of my Uncles & their families lived on Cape Upstart during the war. The Japanese always treated them well. Even today you can still find Japanese Whisky bottles all over the place there. Woodhouse Station is near Clare, Just West of Ayr. I worked there after leaving school & climbed Woodhouse Hill. Part of a shack was still there. The Jehovah Witnesses had a Radio Site there during the War Transmitting to the Japanese. As they did at Malanda on the Atherton Tablelands. Big Court Case, but hushed up. There are a million stories around if you look & they are not fake, just local knowledge.

There is a book by a Japanese Marine Lieutenant who survived landing in the Gulf of Carpentaria. Of 110 Marines that were landed he was the only survivor. Apparently the local Aboriginals speared them one at a time & they never saw a soul. He was lead back, without making contact with the Aboriginals, to the Coast where he was picked up by submarine.

Two of my all time favourites are Moby Dick and The Pickwick Papers.

Moby Dick has everything, science, philosophy, adventure, angst and nostalgia. Melville's superior to Tolstoy in my opinion in that the latter's narrative voice is like an angry god and the former's more modest.
I love Dickens for his way with metaphor and eccentric characters.

Apropos the ladies, Jane Austen and George Eliot.

Modern favourite, Atonement by Ian McEwan.

But picking favourites feels like betraying all the others.
I owe an enormous debt to the author's that helped to insinuate some sense into an all top often foolish head.

Lexi,

No I haven't read anything by Martin Boyd, but will note his name for future reference. I like the verse from Emily Dickinson.

Squeers,

I haven't read Moby Dick (most remiss of me)...but I think that sort of story might answer Hasbeen's question as to why some people read of experiences and times which they cannot themselves experience. As L.P. Hartley writes in those immortal lines of another great work, "The Go-Between": "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."
I've read Melville's Bartleby, which is an extraordinary story.

Sometimes the things that move us aren't contained in book form. When my daughter was in primary school, I befriended an elderly gentleman who I used to talk to while we were waiting at the school gates. He lived in England, but used to visit his son and his family periodically in Australia. His name was Stanley and he was someone from a bygone era. We kept in touch when he returned to his home in Eastbourne and he used to send me long letters regaling me, in the most exquisite prose, of his life in the merchant navy in the earlier years last century. It felt like I was reading a published memoir and I learned so much as well as enjoying his old-world style of writing.

Poirot: he used to send me long letters regaling me, in the most exquisite prose, of his life in the merchant navy in the earlier years last century. It felt like I was reading a published memoir and I learned so much as well as enjoying his old-world style of writing.

I sincerely hope you kept them because that knowledge & insight is invaluable. The stuff that fiction writers can only dream about.
I think that's why M.A.S.H. was so popular. Every episode was adapted from real life. Old soldiers wrote in & told of their personal experiences with M.A.S.H. Units. The personal stories that don't make the "Official History."

A good book is the original Alice in Wonderland. (not the childrens version) It was written because Alice wasn't allowed to be educated. It is an self contained education system, albeit disguised, in its self.

Jayb,

I'm sure I've got them around here somewhere, although I haven't read them for years.

I wonder if I can track them down - if I do I'll post a couple of passages. (I'm sure Stanley wouldn't mind. We lost contact after a while, but he was in his eighties then - and that was over twenty years ago)

I'm going to completely ignore the singular noun in the title and offer four books.

1) Night by Elie Wiesel. It is his account of his experiences of the Holocaust. More than that, it is an exploration of the animal within the human and, more touchingly, an examination of his relationship with his father. At times, it is extremely matter-of-fact; at others, it is completely heartbreaking. In fact, at all times it is completely heartbreaking - but sometimes it is the hardness of Wiesel's tone that breaks the heart rather than the events themselves (which SHOULD be heartbreaking). Not a light read, but the first book I actually read in one sitting.

2) The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Hard to explain, but a beautiful story and an exploration of the childlike innocence that could reside within each of us.

3) Life of Pi by Yann Martel. One of those books that is so confusing, so absurd and so utterly absorbing that it becomes 'literature' as soon as it is published. A rollicking adventure with a twist - but perhaps without a twist. That's the twist.

4) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon. It's just wonderful.