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A novel's power to engender empathy must be one of its strongest features, and this is nowhere better illustrated then in painting a realistic picture of a character's workplace, particularly if the work is strenuous, threatening, dirty or dangerous. I think this can be seen in 'Saturday...

Many of the great (and not so great) novels have their narrative embedded in a philosophical ideal. I'm thinking particularly of Nausea by Jean Paul Sartre, Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Neitzsche, L'Etranger by Albert Camus. These novels live out a philosophical idea. Other novels have a...

Characters as products of their backgrounds I too have read two of the books mentioned by Bert, (Far From The Madding Crowd and A Fateful Aberration). I have visited parts of Hardy's Wessex, and one cannot fail to be struck by the way the place adds to the history and atmosphere of the...