Synopses & Reviews
When it comes to reading we are spoiled for choice, and that choice can be a little daunting. That's why this great guide to the world of fiction is every reader's best friend. Packed with accessible introductions to over a thousand must-read authors and over four thousand superb titles, the Good Fiction Guide is a book you'll go back to again and again. Every entry includes suggestions for similar books or authors, helping you to discover great fiction you might not have heard about before. What makes the Good Fiction Guide superior to any other book of its kind is not just the thousands of entries, but the comprehensive overviews of different fiction genres, each written by a best-selling author. At the end of each chapter the author presents his or her own list of their very favorite books of that type. The genres include not just standard classifications such as Thrillers, Humor, and Science Fiction, but also more specialized subjects such as Social Issues, The Sea, and Family Saga. The Guide also includes chapters on the best fiction produced by different countries around the world, including Russia, France, India and the Caribbean. Whatever your preference, from classics to crime, history to humor, short stories to science fiction, the Good Fiction Guide has it all covered. An indispensable guide for reading groups, serious bookworms, and anyone who would like to read more.
Synopsis
Covering everyone from Leo Tolstoy and Mark Twain to Don De Lillo and Lorrie Moore,
Good Fiction Guide offers an informative reference work on novelists and their works, with an emphasis of twentieth-century fiction and popular classics, but with ample coverage of major novelists of the past.
The guide takes us on a stimulating tour of the literary landscape. Here are more than one thousand alphabetically arranged biographies of important novelists, ranging from Chinua Achebe to Emile Zola. There are profiles of leading contemporary writers, such as Ann Beattie, Thomas Pynchon, Jane Smiley, Martin Amis, Amy Tan, Peter Carey, V.S. Naipaul, and Harold Brodkey. The entries provide a flavor of each writer's work, recommend which of their books to read, and include suggestions for related reading, leading you to other writers whose work may be either comparable or an interesting contrast. Equally important, the guide includes 34 essays that illuminate genres such as Crime, Adventure, Romance, and Magic Realism, or offer intriguing looks at the national literatures of such places as Australia, India, and the Caribbean. Each entry is a personal essay by an expert in the field and includes their top twelve recommended titles.
Good Fiction Guide is a perfect road map for everyone exploring the highways and byways of fiction.
About the Author
Jane Rogers has written six novels and a number of television screenplays, including
Dawn and the Candidate and a four-part serialization of
Mr Wroe's Virgins. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and lives in the U.K.
Table of Contents
Introduction
I Subject Essays Adventure, Robert McCrum
Africa, Anthony Chennells
Australia and New Zealand, Jane Rogers
Black and white, Rita Christian
Canada, Aritha van Herk
Caribbean, E. A. Markham
Childhood, Jan Dalley
Classics, John Sutherland
Crime, Michael Dibdin
Family saga, Sherry Ashworth
Fantasy, Tom Shippey
Film adaptations, Mike Harris
France, Michele Roberts
Germany, Michael Hulse
Glamour, Kate Saunders
Historical, Boyd Tonkin
Humour, Nigel Williams
India, Shirley Chew
Ireland, Patricia Craig
Magic realism, Carol Birch
Romance, Elizabeth Buchan
Russia, Lesley Chamberlain
Science fiction, Live Michael
The sea, Tony Tanner
Sexual Politics, Maureen Freely
Short stories, Lesley Glaister
Social issues, Valentine Cunningham
Spy, Michael Shea
Supernatural, Michael Cox
Teen, Adele Geras
Thrillers, Val McDermid
United States of America, Richard Francis
War, Mike Harris
Western, Lee Clark Mitchell
II Authors A-Z