Why read Chopper?

Book cover of Chopper

Book description

Bullied at school, and growing up dreaming of revenge, Mark 'Chopper' Read determined to be the toughest in any company. He became a crime commando who terrorised drug dealers, pimps, thieves and armed robbers on the streets and in jail - but boasts never to have hurt an innocent member…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Chopper as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Cy Dethan

Author

As a model unreliable narrator, you couldn't pick a more disarming armed robber than Mark "Chopper" Read. He described his pseudo-autobiographical book series as "the truth, the half-truth and nothing like the truth," which may be the most honest statement he ever made. None of this is to suggest that Read wasn't every inch the ultra-violent toecutter he sketches out in his writing. It's just that every word in Chopper is working toward the same goal: building a larger-than-life self-caricature to outshine and outlast the man himself. The cover quote boldly declares, "I regret nothing." The final line of…

From Cy's list on The best books about living and dying in the shadow of our own invented selves.