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I'll add my voice to the chorus - great job guys - site is always a pleasure to visit.

TS Eliot and Iain M Banks. Wanted something suitably neutral and obscure. But with hindsight a bit gorey - ------- Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead, Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell And the profit and loss. ------- but to be clear Im not dead :D

Not read this one but that rings true of his "dog stories" - White Fang, Call of the Wild etc. They seem more concerned with keepng the story moving and action packed rather than dwelling on the details, as opposed to Moby Dick which ... if I recall correctly... has and entire chapter on the...

i like the list idea as well. Let's folk plan ahead and I tend to do large orders off Amazon rather than bitty ones.

Good point - had missed this - I guess the Mavrino prison is probably a parallel with the luxusrious lifestyle to wicn Innokenty's family has become accustomered and the other prisons are the prisoner's family's homes. Also ties in with the circles of Dante's inferno. On a separate note -...

Was turning this over in my mind - surely you need to caveat the above note by saying that "unless the protagonist of the novel is the historic figure" I can think of loads of books with major historical figures in them from Shakespeares Histories, to Robert Graves I Claudius and more...

Yes, I read this with interest - I thought he had been introduced as a figure of, if not sympathy, at least of equality. For all his power and the fear he creates he is still a prisoner of his own health, mortality and paranoia.

OK, 11pm on a Friday and I've just finished it - in my case it was translated into English by Max Hayward, Manya Harari and Michael Glenny and published by Harvill. What a read, at 580 pages it's not a lightweight - found it very difficult to put down - I think having the events spread over...

No offence taken and no offence meant in the feedback. :) I take my hat off to anyone who posts their work publicly and you're obviously enthusiatic and well grounded enough to look at your own work with a critical eye. All too often people post their work or ask for opinions and get all...

I bought a bright blue shirt to go with a black polo kneck some years back because of an outfit I once saw Wesley Snipes wearing in Passenger 57?. Didn't work quite so well on me - suspect it was the pasty white skin that ruined it:D

I've read this and Claudius the God was a while back though but don't remember either hating it or loving it. I did really enjoy his autobigraphy Goodbye to All That and have read some of his poetry which seems to fit quite well with my sometimes cynical outlook on life.

Interesting odyssey you're on. I've only read a few of Roth's books but from your review of Goodbye, Columbus (which I've not read) I can see that there are obviously some common themes weaving their way through his works which he explores in different ways.

Fair enough - just something that jumped out at me. Just once? - be prepared for a long hard slog of re-writes if you really want to get published.:eek: Can you perhaps introduce the concepts more slowly over the course of the book - remeber this is only a cocplf of paragraphs - you have...

Sorry Flueretta, doesn't grab me I'm afraid. If I picked this up I'd put it straight back down. It's too mundane and disjointed. A lot of new words are introdued too early which serve to confuse rather than intrigue. Why break the narrative the way you do? Therre are much more effective and...

Of the ones I've read I'd suggest American Pastoral had the biggest impact on me.

amazon.co.uk - seem to have it available from about 15 sellers ranging from £4 - £15 excl. shipping, which is about $300 USD at the current exchange rate for our US friends ;)

Nope not read any of them - even looking back through the archives (Thanks for the link), there are not a lot of authors I've heard of let alone read, with the exception of the famous ones - Hemmingway, Faulkner, Updike, Steinbeck and Roth.

Not strictly relevant to the thread but I spotted a hardback book containing "10 of the best Commando comics". ;) I was tempted but unusually for me resisted. I think my years of reading comics when younger (Eagle, Battle, Tiger) is one of the reasons for my voracious appetite for books...

"wildly entertaining and fast paced" and "book/s like harry potter" my first suggestions would be: The Earthsea Quartet - Ursula LeGuin The Bartimaeus Trilogy - Jonathon Stroud The Fareseer Books - Robin Hobb Other authors to try could include - Anne Mcaffery, Guy Gavriel Kay, David...

Thanks to a three hour delay in Glasgow airport (as the usual small flurry of snow caused the usual amount of chaos round Heathrow) I managed to finish When we were Orphans in one sitting. The book tells the story of the life of Christopher Banks as he comes of age and sets out on the path to...