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Regeneration Trilogy - Pat Barker Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks All of the above are great WWI novels. The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje Atonement - Ian McEwan I am told that Slaughterhouse 5 is a great war novel, but haven't read it myself.

Castle of Crossed Destinies was great. I love Calvino's inventiveness. I read Path to the Spider's Web, an early novel, which is not at all like the Castle, but still well-written and quite descriptive. I also read about a couple of years ago whilst in France, Adam, One Afternoon. Can't remember...

Ou Be Low hoo, I really liked the last section re: the DJ and the physicist/cosmologist. It was probably the most pulpy part of the book, and I would have found it tedious had it all been written like the last section, but its raciness and immediacy was fitting for the end part of the novel...

Glad you liked Ghostwritten. I'm sure you'll appreciate Number9Dream, although I personally just about prefer Ghostwritten. I've got Cloud Atlas, but haven't read it yet. Maybe at Christmas....

East of the Mountains by David Guterson Like his description of nature. His characterisation is quite good too. The 5 mile or so trek through the forest and into Quincy seems a little unbelievable as he is suffering from painful terminal cancer, has had facial injuries due to a car crash and...

I'm currently reading Francis Wheen's How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World and Richard Sennett's Respect. Both books I've only recently started, about 50pp thru so far. However, Wheen clearly is going for the new age ranters and the business gurus, such as Deepak Chopra, Tom Peters, John Gray...

Hi bb. Hope to be posting a bit more soon. Sounds like you're not a Graham Greene fan! And I thought I was the only one who didn't appreciate the Catholic drunkard. He was born only 10 miles from me, but even so, his stuff is rather tedious if you ask me. Skycat

I'm currently reading A Terrible Beauty by Peter Watson and Ingenious Pursuits by Lisa Jardine. The first is an intellectual history of the 20th century, which has some great quotes and stories in it, like Genet desecrating churches to see whether God existed or not – he wasn’t punished so he...

Some of my favourites are probably: Peter Ackroyd Paul Auster Graham Swift Ian McEwan Nicola Barker Will Self Italo Calvino Umberto Eco David Mitchell Iain Banks Non-Fiction: John Gray George Monbiot Theodore Zeldin Sven Linqvuist Richard Dawkins W G Sebald

I found The Blind Assassin really disappointing. How on earth it won the Booker, I don't know. Both English Passengers by Matthew Kneale and Keepers of the Truth by Michael Collins were far better. Having said that, I saw The Handmaid's Tale (operatic version) and thought it was really good...

I'd recommend you read the Daily Mail. Its just about as mind-numbing as Jeffrey Archer with just the same lack of morals and political nous. All you Archers fans should enjoy it. If you're not reading it already that is.

I read The Body Artist which was pretty good. A nice length as well, made it easy to read. One day I'll get round to reading Underworld, but two things put me off at the moment: 1) I have little interest in baseball; and 2) its length. Skycat

Raven, Have you read any Priest before? I understand A Dream of Wessex is supposed to be one of his best, along with The Glamour

Anyone read any of his stuff. I read Dorian, The Quantum Theory of Insanity and Cock and Bull. I was rather disappointed with Dorian. It didn't seem to have the eccentricities of the other two, and I was getting rather bored with it towards the end. Some of the stories in TQTOI are just...

I've only read Foucault's Pendulum and Baudolino of Eco's fictional work. I thought FP was great. I had never really read anything quite so referential until then. Baudolino was OK, but not a patch on FP IMO. I read Kant and the Platypus a while back. Fascinating. That Platopus was some thinker!

Raven, read The Bridge or Feersum Endjinn. Although I would say that Wasp Factory, I reckon, is still one of his best.

Timescales Is the idea of the future Merely a device For filling in the present? We stand in the wooded dell Waiting for the cloudburst Is the present a process Of crumbling Into the past? The walls and windows, The weathered roof, Collapse under the weight Of the world's...

Currently reading How Late It Was, How Late by James Kelman. Its so uplifting in a kind of very depressing way. Or is it melancholic in a sort of ecstatic way? Anyway, its a bit like Pat Metheny turning Malone Dies into a jazz opera.

Stargazing by Peter Hill is my current non-fiction read. There are 3 types of UK lighthouse:island lighthouses, mainland coastal lighthouses and estuarine lighthouses. Fascinating.

One of my favourite short stories is called 'Oh Whistle and I'll Come To You My Lad", by M R James. His short story, which I think is called 'The Malice of Inanimate Objects", is great too, and "Canon Alberic's Scrapbook". In fact almost anything by MR James is pretty much brilliant. He is...