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My copy of The Maltese Falcon has now arrived from Amazon and I am looking forward to what looks like a good read. I have all of Sunday at home this weekend so I hope to read it all in one go. It...

"BY the way, my nomination is Jeffrey Archer".

I'd second that ... First Amongst Equals is the only novel I have been unable to finish and I have never read another of his novels.

1. The Drama of the Gifted Child
2. For Your Own Good
3. Banished Knowledge

All by Alice Miller

Hello Sillyman, Conrad is a favourite of mine so I'd suggest reading some more of him. Lord Jim and The Secret Agent are two fine novels and there are a number of short stories/novellas that are...

When I was a boy I read Mostly Mary by Gwynedd Rae. I've just bought a copy on Amazon as a result of this post, so thanks for the memory!

There's a rather good Irish gothic novel by Wilde's great uncle, Charles Maturin, called Melmoth the Wanderer. In it Melmoth has made a pact with the Devil in exchange for eternal life; but it's all...

Thanks JBI, I like the poem, it reminds me of my own walks in the Lake District; but the last few lines certainly don't sound right and I wondered if I've bungled them.

A friend of mine has sent me a poem by Geoffrey Winthrop Young (1876-1958). He was British mountaineer, educationalist and poet - a fascinating man. I don't know the poem's title but I think it has...

Thank you Brasil, I followed your link and, yes, that was a great cartoon. I like the little twist at the end.

Hello Kelby Lake, I don't know much about Southern Gothic so I can only recommend what you may already have read. Anyway I think Truman Capote has the SG sensibility and some of his short stories...

8955.

I had a good cry at the end of Steinbeck's, Of Mice and Men but Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent, and almost everything else he wrote, is pretty bleak and depressing. In The Secret Agent I...

If we destroy the planet then it may indeed be the end of evolution in this part of the universe.

I see your point about technology making a difference - species busily evolving are driven into...

I'd agree Uberzensch, Nietszche wrote about the "transvaluation" of all values not their destruction. He searched for an ethic that Modern Man could live by.

Colour Purple (Alice Walker) 6
To Kill a Mocking Bird (Harper Lee) 8
Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway) 7.5
Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck) 9

You're right ... I let the haemerroid joke get the better of me. And I so wanted to mention Wilkie Collins' other classic, The Prune Stone!

Hello Stella,

Edmund Burke responded to the French Revolution with his classic defence of the ancien regime, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) and that prompted Thomas Paine to...

What do people on the forum think of Gore Vidal? I have read a lot of his stuff. Last year I read about ten of his novels because he looked really ill and I didn't think he'd last out the year. I...

Well, I racked my poor old brain last night.

I suggest Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White. It is a classic and full of suspense, I checked and the writing isn't too Ye Olde Worlde. Someone else...

It's an interesting argument but I think there are a few problems with it.

Firstly, you seem to be claiming Freud and Nietzsche for your argument, that human consciousness has finally got the...

I completely agree. It's ten years since I read Vanity Fair and unusually I decided to read one chapter a night before going to sleep - like sipping fine wine! I am currently reading a biography of...

The Blue Lagoon - starring Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins

Hello Scheherazade, Please can I nominate Hemingway's The Snows of Kilimanjaro. It's a collection of short stories with the title story being one of his best.

I have a soft spot for the poetry of A.E. Housman. He suffered from unrequited love and so did I. He was a great comfort when I was in trouble.

Hello Greenfroggsplat,

I am new here but I think I can help you in your pursuit of memoirs introducing philosophy. The late Bryan Magee wrote an autobiography called Confessions of a Philosopher....