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Burroughs is an good writer, but to be honest Naked Lunch isn't my favourite of his books. It still has that iconic sort of status, and there are some great scenes in it, but some of it is grim in a way that's simply beyond me; I find certain sections difficult to read. The appendix about...

Distracting? Yes. Self-indulgent? Yes. Joyce is guilty of all the charges you mention. That's partly why I find his books so masterful. He can do whatever he wants to you with language. One chapter in Ulysses is written in a deliberately awful style, full of cliches and lazy thought, to signal...

Here's a similar quote from David Hume: God as an attention-seeker...

Here's one of my favourite quotes from Joyce; a priest explaining one of the torments of hell: -- Last and crowning torture of all the tortures of that awful place is the eternity of hell. Eternity! O, dread and dire word. Eternity! What mind of man can understand it? And remember, it is an...

I'd say the answer you heard is probably right. In books from the early twentieth century (and maybe earlier, I don't know) it's quite common to find a bit of the alphabet set out through the book in this manner. It's not Joyce's doing, that's for sure. Anyway, it seems you've got something...

Great book, although it's been a few years since I've read it. "The Feelies" are a good prediction of virtual environments, and state provision of mood-altering drugs doesn't seem too wide of the mark any more... Creepy! In the essay "Brave New World Revisited" Huxley makes the case for...

I've read loads of music biographies, and I find they only help with understanding the music. Here are a few of the best: Jimi Hendrix: Electric Gypsy by Harry Shapiro & Caesar Glebbeek (best Hendrix biography available anywhere) Morrissey & Marr: The Severed Alliance by Johnny Rogan (All...

I would recommend Practical English Usage by Michael Swan - the Bible of EFL teachers.

Joyce can be quite hard to read. When I first read A Portrait it was the Irish politics that had me baffled. ions, my offer of help with Joyce is still open, so if you've any specific questions feel free to PM me. I've started Gravity's Rainbow a couple of times, but I haven't been able to...

Albert Camus wrote a philosophical account of suicide in The Myth Of Sisyphus. I haven't read it, because I find him such a convincing writer. People trying to sue Ozzy Osbourne over "suicide" lyrics is certainly bizarre. First, the song "Suicide Solution" that I think the case is about, is...

Given the choice, I would much rather read "literature" than a bestseller. The only way a book can become a classic is if people are reading it years after it was written. That's the only reason all the "classic" authors are regarded with such high esteem. My two favourite writers are...

What about the Catholic Index of Prohibited Books? An amazing list that includes many of the great classics of world literature. It's just fascinating to know who the Catholic church would rather it's adherents hadn't read: That's a pretty sizable part of world literature listed there...

Has anyone ever read any Borges? He's one of my favourite writers, and he's really easy to get into. He rarely wrote anything longer than about six pages, but he managed to get more ideas into his short stories than you'd find in the average novel. There's the story of Funes, who has the...

It's a very good collection. They're pretty unusual as most short stories go, with the emphasis on character, thoughts and the presentation of the moment, rather than plot. They also add up to an vivid depiction of Dublin at the dawn of the 20th century. Joyce said he wrote Dubliners with a...

He famously read North's translation of Plutarch as a source for Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, and Julius Caesar. The following text is given as a source for Romeo and Juliet: Brooke, Arthur (?-1563). The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet (English translation in 1562) Info...

I believe Shakespeare is Shakespeare, and he wrote the plays. I see no reason to doubt this, and what little "evidence" I've read in favour of de Vere or Bacon or whoever seems so spurious and strained that I haven't looked into it any further. Scholars think he must have read English...

Hi there, I can't help too much with the others, but here are a few suggestions about the development of language: The Language Instinct - Steven Pinker (the only general scientific account I can think of) The Stories of English - David Crystal (best history of the English language I've...

I agree with the previous post in every respect. I enjoyed The Da Vinci Code too - although I found the style grated a bit, I thought the plot was well-structured and gripping. I might be slightly reluctant to bring it up in a "literary" discussion, but if you enjoy it, you enjoy it!

:) Swindon's not great to be fair; Oxford's not too far away though, with the most marvellous and majestic Blackwell's shop on Broad Street!

I'm not an author myself, but as an aside I hear Goerge Orwell used to keep a shelf in his house for romantic novels and women's magazines - it's surely very useful for an author to find out what people are reading, but that's true dedication to the cause!