“… the power of one – one idea, one heart, one mind, one plan, one determination.” The fictionalized biography of Peekay, a young man born into a profoundly racist WW II South Africa, is so compelling, so graphic, so gut-wrenching, so moving and so gripping, it is all but impossible to believe that it is Bryce Courtenay’s debut novel. Like Jeffrey Archer’s KANE AND ABEL, Herman Wouk’s THE WINDS OF WAR or Khaled Hosseini’s THE KITE RUNNER, Peekay’s personal story is credible, moving, and unfai...

My all time favourite book!

Audio version with introduction by the author himself. He is such a larrikin with a happy voice. Bryce Courtenay's debut, apparently toiled over at the kitchen table with his son's girlfriend stating "This is the best book I've read, you need to publish it" or words to the effect. The rest, they say, is history. "First with the head, then with the heart" What an Australian classic, one that I should have read by now.Peekay starts out as a tiny tot (I have a 6 year old son and therefore horrif...

Wow... incredible!!! I fell in love with Peekay even 'before' he was five years old, starting in South Africa, when he shares of being nursed from his lovely black nanny before being sent to boarding school. ( although we follow him from age 5 to 20 - from the late 1930's to mid 40's).Our oldest daughter attended a boarding High School in Michigan for a short time -an academic/arts school. The family separation was painful. I can't begin to imagine sending a 5 year old away to a boarding school ...

Took me some time to read, but not because it wasn't good, but just because there is so much to this story. A supremely well written book! If you like historical fiction - the type focused on people living in certain historical eras, not necessarily specific historical events - you will enjoy this story. I now feel like I have a good feel for WWII era South Africa. Also, if you like interesting characters and good character development, this is a good story for you, too.

I hardly know where to begin writing this review. This book had been on my to-read list for a long time. I finally decided to take the plunge and listen to the Audible version, narrated by the fantastic Humphrey Bowers (who really brought SHANTARAM to life also). And now it's over. Twenty hours spent getting to know the wonderful Peekay, and now I'm done? This is one of those books that isn't really over when you finish it. It stays with you and the characters live on inside your head.That's rea...

What a nice surprise this book was for me. This coming-of-age story set in 1939 South Africa has a focus on the sport of boxing throughout, which I am generally not a fan of, but certainly loved every minute of it in this story. Peekay endures awful humiliation and abandonment at such a young age yet he struggles along through adversity and heartbreaking losses.Numerous comments by readers mention they did not care for the ending, but I, for one, loved it! I kept wondering when the 'judge' would...

Of all the books I read in 2009 one stands out in the horizon of my memory, a mass market paperback with 540 pages of microscopic print which I devoured in a day and a half.The Power of one gave me the chance to meet a part of myself that I thought I had lost forever. It rekindled a long extinguished flame of hope, it awakened a lost feeling of wonder, it gave me proof that one can make a difference.Set in South Africa in the 1930s and 40s , The Power of one is the compelling coming-of-age story...

The dazzling writing style of Bryce Courtenay is captured in this, his debut novel. Its intricate prose and powerful characters bring a story to life that few readers will be able to resist. In rural South Africa during the late 1930s, Peekay is a young boy who has been sent to boarding school. With English roots, Peekay struggles in this school where the Boer boys ridicule him for his heritage, turning verbal pokes into full-on malicious attacks. With war building in Europe, Peekay is led to be...

I just finished reading The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay which was recommended to me by JK in our little cross country virtual book club. Divided into three parts, this is a story of a boy named Peekay coming of age in 1930-1950's South Africa. So, we've got major historical things happening - Boer War aftermath, Hitler Germany and WWII, the buddings of Apartheid. And then you have this really small boy going through hell at age 5 in a boarding school and learning at this infant stage in life...