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I rather like that. It seems loaded somehow with subtle symbolism. Flags of course always potently symbolic, the US flag even more so. It's not heavy-handed, rather more suggestive. And it's not critical, simply dry and arch in its observation. The idea of the flag 'preparing to take flight'...

A new take on an old favourite... IF If you can keep your head when all around you Are losing theirs and tripping over you If you can find a home when none has found you And claim their garden, house and bedroom too If you can wash a mile from any water And roam without recourse to...

Yes, Last Chance To See was breathtaking. Both funny and heartbreaking, a rare trick. Some of the things that happened to Douglas Adams seem like they could only have come out of a Douglas Adams novel. For example, the woman in the kiosk at some minor airport who never, ever sold anything...

Indeed, 'Dirk Gently' is one of my all-time favourites, and the second one is almost as good. In some places, even better. Especially Thor. How about 'The Meaning of Liff' and 'The Deeper Meaning of Liff'? They are my bibles... I try to use at least one Liff word every day, and usually find...

Not unknown but certainly very scarce these days it seems: 'Beware of Pity' by Stephan Zweig. Probably my favourite book. (Not just 'cos it's so obscure, I should add...) Set just before the First World War, it follows a young idealistic career-soldier who gets invited to a party at the...

I would love to be able to write a breathtakingly ambitious work of huge scope like David Mitchell's 'Cloud Atlas'; or something insanely provocative and haunting like Paul Auster's New York Trilogy. What I actually write has no resemblence to either, of course... if you can't beat 'em, take...

Fiction/Non-fiction Both fiction and non-fiction are important, of course. But I get cross - no, I get livid - with people who look down on fiction slightly, and consider 'factual' books somehow superior. This seems to be missing the point in a spectacular fashion. Reading a book should...

No taboo topics, only taboo writing... I remember reading some interview with GP Taylor when he criticised Philip Pullman for his anti-religious themes, and implied that PP's books were thus somehow harmful. Talk about a person throwing stones while living in a glass house. GP Taylor has to...

Edge Chronicles The Edge Chronicles are marvellous. Truly original and inventive fantasy/SF for readers aged roughly 9 and over. Owes something perhaps to the Discworld series, if only in concept, but is entirely its own creation too. The most distinctive feature is that it is a...

Identify with... I think I too can look to Tolkien for the character that most makes me feel, 'Yes, I think I understand that feeling.' I identify most with Samwise, I think, even though I'd much rather be Aragorn, or Legolas, or perhaps even Frodo (in spite of what he goes through... it's...

LOL! Excellent choices... and who knows, probably long-lost spirit cousins. "Hello, my name is Hazel-Rah. You destroyed my warren. Prepare to have Thlayli chew on your ears." (Actually Bigwig is probably my favourite WD character... sort of Obelix to Hazel's Asterix. Uh-oh, now I'm getting...

Drop this book... two words: Dan Brown I love a good trashy thriller. But a trashy trashy thriller is just sew disposable...

Gatsby the ancestor of Ripley? It's funny, when I read The Talented Mr Ripley for the first time, I was reminded of The Great Gatsby. I think Gatsby may have provided the model or archetype for a host of similar heroes/antiheroes. I found striking similarities between the ways the two men built...

Adult vs 'childish' I've always found it amusing that whenever a book or a film warns that it contains 'adult themes', this generally means it contains foul language, explicit sex scenes, high levels of violence and... well, you get the idea. Whereas 'childish' themes seem to be more about...

Good ideas Why are we surprised that good ideas are so rare? They are good because they are rare. If gold were as common as iron, would it be as precious? Rejoice in writer's block. Distrust any writer who never gets it.

Trilogies Tolkien had an interesting problem with The Lord of the Rings. It was so long (and paper at the time was so scarce!) that HarperCollins wanted to divide it into three. He reluctantly agreed - and so that notorious beast the 'fantasy series' was born. But it's obvious, when you read...

Poems At all costs you want to avoid the sort of thing you'd find in a greetings card. In other words you want real feelings, real experience. How about making a list of special things that only you and he know about - your favourite jokes, places, things that only you two share? Once you...

Donna Tartt 1. How oh how could anyone be bored by The Secret History? When I read the last page I turned back to page 1 and read it through a second time without even pausing (well, a few times to eat perhaps). 2. The Little Friend... less fast-paced that TSH, but equally compelling in its...

NY Trilogy... Especially if they're in a RED cover, eh? :-) Have you read Oracle Night too? In a sense the 'fourth' book of the trilogy (to get all Douglas Adams for a moment). Continues the theme of odd-coloured notebooks and metatextual bewilderment (did I really say that?). Love the...

Auster Paul Auster's New York Trilogy (it's one novel, BTW) is a must-read.