Search results

I've only read the Tin Drum, which seems to be the most widely recommended. It's certainly a very interesting book, but it's not particularly easy to read. But if you're willing to concentrate, you'll be rewarded.

I don't think that's a fair comparison. Grass was part of the generation (born in the twenties) who were indoctrinated into Nazi society at a very young age when they surely didn't have the critical faculties to even think of resisting. OJ Simpson, on the other hand, lives in a free country...

I wouldn't worry too much about the imagery. If you spend too much time thinking about things like that, you'll end up with purple prose. Concentrate on writing your story as plainly and clearly as you can (at least that's the advice all the novel writing self-help books give). I think it's...

Tom Holt writes humorous fantasy in a similar style. His books are much more shallow and self-consciously wacky than Pratchett's though, so I can't recommend them for more than the jokes. Grailblazers is my favourite.

I remember all the fuss about this book when it first came out, but somehow never got round to reading it until now. I loved the otherwordly atmosphere and the way Mills turned the mundane existence of the fencers into something sinister. It was all building up very nicely until the end, which...

If you're going to place a bet, go for someone Scandinavian. They've won 13% of the time despite having only 0.5% of the World's population. It reminds me of the Eurovision Song Contest voting system.

The Art of Travel is also worth a look. Particularly if you're actually travelling somewhere at the time, so you can read the explanation of why you're feeling what you're feeling when you're feeling it.

I usually get 110-120, and my best scores are around 160. We used to go bowling regularly after work and it was interesting to see how people would drift in and out of form. One person would beat us every single game with scores of up to 200, and then one day he just couldn't hit anything...

It sounds vaguely like Matilda by Roald Dahl, but that's been out for many years so you're probably thinking of something else.

I enjoyed Life of Pi, but the structure was odd. For most of part one I was wondering when we were going to get a move on and get shipwrecked, and then for most of part two I was bored of the shipwrecked situation, which was strung out for far too long. Part three was a satisfactory ending, but...

It's out of copyright and is available at Project Gutenberg. Here's the relevant passage in full. My understanding is the good knight has seen a vision of God which has pulled him out of his despair, and the narrator cannot speak or tell of it because he too has had the same experience (note...

Why would Iran be stupid enough to start WWIII? They want nuclear weapons for the same reason that anyone else wants them: as a deterrent against other nuclear-armed countries.

I agree American gun laws are insane, but I heard an interesting counterexample from Michael Moore (who I wouldn't normally turn to for a well-reasoned argument): the gun ownership rates in Canada are higher even than in the US, and yet their gun crime rates are far lower. Moore's explanation...

His books have a different tone to his media diatribes (at least those that I've read - his latest one might be different). He always treats the reader as an equal and even his most stringent anti-religion arguments are calmly and reasonably made. I wish he would take the same care elsewhere.

To Flor and Mafalda: I think you've missed the point. Nobody in Germany or anywhere else is criticising Grass for having been a member of the Waffen SS (at least, nobody with any sense. But for the grace of God we could all have been in that position). The real question is why he didn't admit...

Did anyone use to play text adventures on the Acorn Electron? (Or BBC micro). I remember being amazed at the quality of a game called "The Lost Crystal", which not only seemed vast but was also illustrated (up to a point) and its parser could understand complete sentences. All that in 32K! I...

Actually, no. I have very little confidence that my ideas are good. I've planned out about half a dozen novels in the last few years and thrown them all away because I don't think the ideas are "novel-worthy". I've written lots of short stories, though, many of which I'm proud of - maybe because...

I doubt anything is possible, but your examples aren't very good: Not impossible, just statistically very unlikely Control+Z usually works A bit of genetic engineering and it'll be a snap Become a revisionist historian I'll build a course with a complex underground system of...

I've only read The New York Trilogy, and hated it with a passion I had hitherto reserved for The Ballad of the Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers (and that was only because I had to study it in school). I hated the contrived plots, the wafer-thin characters and the meaningless situations. Are all his...

Do you mean the words or the accent? The accent sounds like an American affecting an upper class English accent. It does bear a faint resemblance to a genuine upper class English accent, in much the same way that Dick Van Dyke's accent in Mary Poppins resembles a cockney accent. Although I'm...