My Latest Fad

Mon, 29 Nov 2010 14:36:57 +0100

After half a century of reading novels, it becomes harder to find a "new" author that you can get excited about.
I mean as when the first book you read is enough to make you decide to read all his others that you can lay hands on.

Such writers in my youth were Dostoevsky, Stendhal, Trollope. Dickens I never liked at all, except maybe for Great Expectations and even that mainly because I'd seen the movie. Proust is another I've always found boring and unreadable.
Funnily enough, many of my favourite novelists have been Proust fans.

Later in life I came to value certain writers much more than formerly. Especially Somerset Maugham and Anton Chekhov.
A few months ago I got hooked on Daphne du Maurier, and able to read her for the first time. About the same time I discovered Mary Webb.

Among modern writers, my favourites are Jonathan Tropper and Isaac Bashevis Singer and my greatest hate is Saul Bellow.

My latest craze is Nevil Shute. I will read all his available novels (about a dozen) in the order written. So far the best has been Pastoral. That made me cry at the moment of realisation. Even his most pedestrian prose pleases me by what I see as its integrity.

Blogs on Books

Sun, 28 Nov 2010 17:58:33 +0100

Please also post here about the books you are reading.

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My Latest Fad

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