Cornelius Lamprecht

I was born in the Old South Africa, a very long time ago. I can’t really remember because I was too small, but they tell me it was in December of 1956. The first 16 years of my life were just good and dull. A father that worked many hours overtime to maintain his family – wife and four sons. A mother that cooked food, clean the house and loved her church and the garden. Money was something that was very scarce in our house.

My father used to get two pair of safety shoes per year, one came to me. Education was low in our family, but the understanding of life was very big. There were a few strict rules. You can stay out of school, only if you are in hospital. Better get sick during holidays, else to school you will go. At the end, after 12 years in school, I got a nice certificate – 11 years with not one day absent from school. From the age of 12 years I became a prefect in the school library. That gave me access to books. A whole library full of them.

In the following 4 years I just about read every book in the library. At 14 I was the Head Prefect – and that means I had a key to the library. Thus, on weekends I slipped one of the Big books – a volume of an encyclopaedia – in my bag home. That was not ‘allowed’. Our headmaster knew, but luckily he did not push the issue. I just got the ‘eye’ a few times. At 14 years of age I saved one years of pocket money and begged a Professor at the University of Pretoria to give me training at Speed Reading. The wise old man did not take my money – but he said I can attend all his classes for free. I did not care about a certificate – I just wanted to read faster. Every Thursday I went by bus to the Uni, sat there in the auditorium for two hours – and did everything the senior students did. I became quite a fast reader.

When I was 16 years old, I started working in the Main City Library of Pretoria on weekends. Off course, I was happy. But that only lasted for one year – then I went to the South African Police in 1974. I loved reading, a lot. However, in my later life I started to get bored. When I buy a nice book, usually my first objectives were the thickest books on the shelf. But they became boring. By page ten or twenty I knew the story. It was like every author had a template where he just change the names and some scenes around. I stopped buying books.

My relaxing time was filled with the most wonderful invention for silly people like me. The Internet. I started ‘reading’ on the net when it first became available in South Africa. At that time it was only available at the same University I learned speed reading. Fortunately, my business was in computers and that same University was one of my clients . . . Not long and I had my own computer linked to the Internet via a 1200 Bd dial-up modem. What a life! But all only text and at that time it was mostly science papers, which was perfect for me.

Since 1995 I left South Africa; the world became my Homeland. I was mining for gemstones in Zambia, cut the gems and made jewellery in Bangkok. Had a hopping around Saudi Arabia, lead an exploration expedition throughout Somaliland and Djibouti, some time in Dubai and Jordan before I came back to the East.

I made a website in 1998 to look for an investor in an emerald mining project in Zambia. Surprisingly ‘EmeraldMine’ is still on-line to this day, not touched since June 1998! I got my investor and I became very busy in the world outside of South Africa.

I wrote my first book around the same time, 1996. It was about Aromatherapy. Never published. Two years of work. In 2003 I wrote another book about water treatments, it was also very good – but never got past the publishers selections. That was it, no more wasting of time.

Until 2015. A friend opened my eyes to the prospects of eBooks. Since I wrote a number of articles in the preceding years, I though ‘Why not try’. Here I am.

I love reading. I love writing more.

One thing I will assure you, each and every word in any of my books are my own writing. No ghost writers in my books. I even make my own front pages. I just like to do things by myself. Unfortunately my English is not very high level, the best I can do is to use computer software to the maximum. For my first two books (Emerald Buddha and eBook Guide) I had a friend doing the grammar checking. But it is imposing many hours on his life. So I decided to claim “The Art of Writing” as a form of my own.

Therefore, my writing might not conform to a particular standard as far as grammar is concerned. I think the spelling is reasonable good. Please forgive me that transgression – but enjoy the content. To date I have not tried a fiction book yet, but will do so soon. (Now working on the first in "Expansion' trilogy series) I have my own rules to apply. It has to be a page turner and it has to be filled with surprises. I do not want to hear about my book being boring!

I still have two daughters that are rather happy to stay in South Africa. Fortunately my two sons are out, also now working and living near me in Thailand.

I started a new venture with building boats here in Thailand in 2003. Bakri Cono became a big success. Today it is one of the most prestigious Yacht builders in Asia. A scuba diving resort in Lembeh, Indonesia (NAD Lembeh) – which we sold when my son became father. My oldest son took the Chandlery aspect and run with it, today one of the biggest in SE Asia with the very nice name of ‘ASAP-Marine’. Yes, ‘As Soon As Possible’. The younger one is running the Yacht factory.

As for me, I am now just spending the biggest portion of my time doing research and writing.

I really love writing!

I hope you will enjoy my books.

Please do leave me a comment below – be it good or bad.