Nope. The whole thing is available here. If there's any difference, I didn't notice, and have now read it twice, several years apart.

http://robotnovel.blogspot.com.au/

There are two ways of looking at this book, fiction or autobiography, and it's hard to say which is more depressing. The overuse of expressions - for example the only way he could leave a chair, sofa etc, was to spring from it; 'or something' was a constant refrain; same expressions from most characters - left you uncertain whether it was the protagonist or the author whose language and social skills were limited, or whether he was ripping it off from Holden Caulfield and freebasing it.

It's the story of a nameless, awkward and underachieving anti-hero, (somewhat pretentiously borrowed in equal parts from Salinger and Hemingway), who decides to break free from his bogan Auckland mates, move out and meet new people. If you know OBIS, you'll immediately appreciate the temptation to see this as autobiography: a rapid succession of houseshare experiences where everyone else is a basket-case but who invariably feel justified in treating him as a doormat. It's like Birmingham's Falafel, except the housesharers are uninteresting, unfunny, and unidentifiable.

It has a beginning, middle and end only if you're counting the pages, as you will be quite early in the experience. There is not so much a plot as a stitching together of three already published short stories, and the only attempt to underlay a theme is the entirely unnuanced idea that everyone in New Zealand is a chippy and nationalistic, neurotic bogan, with an offensively inflated opinion of himself. It's very easy to suspect Quent had a very hard time finding somewhere to live in New Zealand for very long time, and this is why he has spent the last decade elsewhere.

I'd give away the ending, but there isn't one, however it's inspiring in at least two ways. Firstly, this is a book that will make you want to punch every character in the face, including the women. Secondly, it will inspire even reluctant authors to publish that one novel they say everyone has in them, safe in the knowledge it won't be the worst.

Highly recommended.

The sulky-looking girlfriend began shrieking like an actress in a horror movie. A fainting scene was surely on the way.

Yes, I think that's it.

Anyone want to give me a good recommendation for a biography of Winston Churchill? I don't mind if it's long and in-depth as long as it isn't boring or turgid.

Ah well seems someone nailed it first. merediths others also worht reading. Best book general book on Africa I've read is John readers: Africa History of a continent - fantastic in its breadth and more remarkably was up to speed on all the revisionsit debates. Highly readable.

Also King Leopolds Ghost by Adam Hochschild arguably the most engaging piece of popular history i've read. . . .Leopold, Berlin Conference, Morel and the congo.

The best book I read recently was "One Soldier's War in Chechnya," by Arkady Babchenko.

An incredibly bleak book about a conscript whose main problems are not the savage Chechens but the bullies and incompetent officers of the Russian Army. The narrator spends more time dodging the fists of his drunken superiors than dodging bullets, and stays alive only through bribery, theft, cunning and luck.

Someone once told me that, even at the height of the Cold War, Britain could have beaten the Soviet Union single-handed. I thought that ridiculous, but if the description in this book is accurate I think even New Zealand could have beaten them. Both terrifying and illuminating, and if you understand much about Russian culture it can also be very funny (in parts).

Sounds decent.

Speaking of Russian books, read Strange Telescopes by Daniel Kalder, about his journeys around Russia and odd characters left behind from the the end of the Soviet Union. He can write, the topic should be interesting but ultimately it's a rubbish book. He just hits the wrong tone repeatedly.