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That is screwed up and unhealthy on so many levels. 'Oh goodness – I've discovered that I'm gay! But it's bad, so I'll have to try to ignore or conquer it'.

Maus by Art Spiegelmann. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

I've only just seen this, but as Thomas puts it, so shall I: :stars5:

Hi Comeflyaway. Thanks for the comments, but just to clarify, it's written as a memoir – there's nothing to suggest that it actually is anything other than a piece of fiction.

Buenas Noches, Buenos Aries by Gilbert Adair When Gideon leaves England to start work at the Berlitz language school in Paris, he's a shy and introverted young man with little experience, who has only just managed to come out to himself. So the male staff room at the school, where he finds...

The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by José Saramago, translated by Giovanni Pontiero It might seem an unlikely subject for a communist and atheist to tackle, but Portuguese Nobel laureate José Saramago's Gospel According to Jesus Christ is an extraordinary novel of great power and beauty...

Thanks, abecedarian. :) I used to hate shopping for clothes, for many of the reasons that Linda Grant touches on in the book. The first chapter in particular made me laugh out loud a number of times because some of the experiences were so recognisable.

Novelist Linda Grant doesn’t claim to be a stylist or even a fashion buff. What she enjoys, she explains, are good clothes. And shoes. And handbags. So what she has set out to do in her new book is to explore why clothes are important – and why making an effort to think about how we dress is...

Biographies of Oscar Wilde and Thomas Mann (in the case of the latter, Anthony Heilbut's excellent book). Death in Venice, then by Mann (although it's not just about sexuality). The Naked Civil Servant, as already mentioned, is super – very funny in places. Colm Tóibín's Love in a Dark Time...

From a Joseph Kessel novel of 1928. ;) She's one of a number of anonymous female bloggers who have upset some people by being open about their sexuality. We still do not readily accept voracious female sexual appetite. It makes some people feel uncomfortable. As a slight aside, in some areas...

Belated happy birthday, Stewart. Hope you had a good one (if you can remember it).

Inspiration comes from all sorts of sources. There was I, watching the final of University Challenge last night, when poet Wendy Cope walked out to hand over the trophy. 'Ah,' I thought. 'I'm sure I've got one of her books on the shelf. It's about time I read it.' A few hours later, I...

The points that beer good made, in his excellent post, are absolutely valid in my opinion. Non-fiction in particular will inevitably cross over into real life. And Monkeycatcher's post has just raised, again, an issue that Dawkins very particularly raises in The God Delusion – that of the...

Forgot to mention Alan Rickman, Armin Müller-Stahl, Geoffrey Rush ...

Rather more generally, I think that it needs to be remembered the background against which Dawkins wrote The God Delusion. The last decade or so has seen a rise in religious fundamentalism. Some of it has been obvious, such as Islamic terrorism or the hate and bile of the likes of Westboro...

I was asking for you – or anyone else – to come up with something that was regarded by atheists in general and at large, as a non-religious guideline for living: something that would be comparable to the Bible/Torah/Qu'ran for that 'group'. There are obviously plenty of books and philosophies...

And I respectfully refer you to beer good's comments from this morning, Peder. At no point have you suggested any atheist 'text' that would be a comparable to theology. Oh dear, oh dear. I really cannot find anywhere where I have said or suggested that Peder. In fact, I've just checked back...

Peder, I'm shocked. I was doing my utmost to behave in a respectful way in this debate and I'm sorry if you've taken my approach in a different way. I certainly have not suggested that you didn't respond "fairly" to anything. What I'm concerned to do here is merely to make the discussion as...

I haven't said it in such a manner here. But on the basis of what I have carefully and respectfully described, do you agree that a pick and mix approach to religion exists – indeed that it is the norm amongst believers? Do you not agree that, were religious believers to feel that they absolutely...

Not really Chris. I was brought up, and thus indoctrinated from the earliest possible age, by fundamentalist, evangelical parents. I didn't really have a lot of say in the matter. So I have only gone from belief to no belief. No other changes. Still, I do like to think that it gives me a...