Snag Your Copy The Potato Factory: The Potato Factory Trilogy Book 1 Written And Illustrated By Bryce Courtenay Supplied As Audio Book

second attempt at a Courtenay, and will be my last, I just dont like his writing style or the way he goes about telling a story, Initially I was intrigued enough to see where the story went, but as with Power of One the longwinded writing got the better of me, This felt like some sort of ribald dark comedy, with falling on bosoms and getting tangled in skirts, amongst gang rapes and beatings a smattering of Dickensian darkness with the antics of Richardsons Pamela.
Skipped ahead afterpages, but found nothing to entice me to stay, Bryce Courtenay is fast becoming one of my favorite authors, . The Power of One was one of those life changing novels that we are most fortunate to read in our lifetimes,
The Potato Factory is just as goodordered the next two in this trilogy, cant wait to start the next one! This is the first in the Australian trilogy:
.
The Potato Factory
. Tommo amp Hawk
. Solomon's Song

I was hooked after the first chapter!

Bryce Courtenay is noted for his ability to weave dramatic, graphic, human stories with historic fact.
He did not disappoint with this book, I could not put it down, We meet Ikey, Hannah and Mary in's England, . "dark times, bleak times, hard times", They survive in the under belly of English society, Their lives and their stories are woven together, . Deemed criminals by English courts, they all end up in the penal colony in Van Diemen's Land Australia, Here the paths their lives take continue to cross, . We cheer for Mary, hate Hannah and always wonder about Ikey, As the last chapter in this book comes to a close, Mary and her two sons, Tommo and Hawk,reunited after horrific events, have finally acquired the financial means to move forward, and upward, in society, as a family and in the legal business world.
Looking forward to starting bookin the Trilogy: Tommo amp Hawk, First I loved this book, After starting it on vacation it was the only book at the rental home on the beach where we were I had to find the others in this series.

The storyline was so fascinating to me as a look into the lives of the poor and downtrodden prisoners sent from Britain to Australia, Because of the people involved the language is very course and I wouldn't recommend it to people who are offended by such, I don't believe it is filthy for the sake of filth, but if this were a movie it would be R for sure, For me it was almost like reading in another language, a vernacular of our own, but even though I can't stand to watch movies with lots of swearing, this book didn't bother me.
Not sure why, but it just seemed raw and true, I was enthralled with the lives of the characters and the human trials they endured, I "read" this as a download from Audible, com. Humphrey Bower is an exceptional narrator effortlessly giving each character their own distinct voice, I was enthralled with Courtenay's writing and Bower's narration, I don't know if I'd give it five as a print book or not, but I recommend it as an audible book to anyone, It took me a few months to get through this audiobook and every now and again I had to stop listening because it was just too much: the violence, the poverty, the lack of compassion.
Yet I would always pick it up again, keen to find out what happens next, because throughout the story there is a glimmer of hope in its characters' grit, their will to survive and find peace, however short lived.
Bryce Courtenay is an impressive storyteller who is sometimes ruthless to his readers while describing the realities of life in the povertystricken London and Van Diemen's land Tasmania.
He is far from subtle but he also makes it impossible to stay cold and disinterested in the fate of his characters, I picked up The Potato Factory by Bryce Courtenay, looked at it, flipped to the last page and groaned, a whopper of a book and one Ive had on my shelf for many many years possibly because of its size and it being the first volume in The Potato Factory Trilogy so it was high time I moved it up to my TBR coffee table pile however, to perusepages plus seemed like a huge task at this time so many challenges to complete, I grabbed my phone, checked the Borrowbox app and there it was, with a sigh of relief and a big smile on my face I tuned in and listened to what was the most epic, brutal and impressive story Ive read/listened to in a while.
Its a remarkable book, but Humphrey Bowers stunning narration was certainly part of what made it so enthralling,

The writing is very explicit, there were quite a few parts that were extremely savage which had me crying like a baby, It took Bryce Courtenayyears to write this novel so one can imagine the research that went into this book! The history in this novel was fascinating but the hardships the characters endured was frightening and just so bloody awful.


As far as I know Humphrey Bower has narratedbooks thats beyond amazing and Im determined to listen to most of them

thats how phenomenal Humphrey Bower is at narrating books.


Book/of mycoffee table toread challenge, cont,
This is a historical fiction about the most notorious criminal in England in the early's and his exile to Australia, It reads to me like a Dickens novel, set in the same time period, I've never actually read any other books that tell the story of how Australia was settled and how the convicts were brought here and treated once they arrived.
The first half of the book is wordy, slow and hard to read, And only at the halfway point it gradually accelerates, So I doubt very much whether Ill pick up the next two books in the trilogy, This one was good, but not that good, Big, brash and epic, The Potato Factory takes us back to earlyth century London and to the early years of Englands penal settlement in Tasmania, “Van Diemens Land”.
This is the London of Charles Dickens, gritty with poverty, violence, brutality and crime, much of which we come to see, gets exported to Australia,

The Potato Factory is Courtenays fictionalized history of Ikey Solomon, his wife Hannah and his erstwhile mistress and business partner, Mary, Ikey is a London Jew, a master “fence”, crafty, despicable and the likely inspiration for Dickens Fagin in Oliver Twist, Ikeys schemes and machinations eventually catch up with him, and he, and separately Hannah and Mary, get “transported” to Van Diemens Land,

This story, whether completely true or not, is a powerful tale of social injustice and greed and of our ability to overcome this, It is also a lush and vivid portrait of this time in English and Australian history, lovingly researched and clearly Courtenays homage to the grit and determination that characterized the European settlement of Down Under.
The characters are all richly textured and memorable, truly Dickensian, and the story line, with its plot twists and intrigues, is an emotional rollercoaster of a ride, The Potato Factory is storytelling at its best,

And I cannot finish without giving another strong plug for the audiobook, narrated by Humphrey Bower, His voicings and narration bring a life to this story that is truly amazing, The Potato Factory is½ star book, that I will easily round up to, and the performance by Mr, Bower,stars. .