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Archive for the ‘The List’ Category

Most mentioned authors since 1800

Playing around with Google ngrams, you can undertake an analysis of key-words across all of the books scanned by Google.  The graph analysis below shows the enduring popularity of Austen in the English language, compared to some French writers (Balzac,Flaubert,Proust and Stendhal):                           […]

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Vote results on 21st Century New Writers

Thanks to all our voters for the new writers of the 21st Century. Out of the seven proposed new novels, both Ned Beauman’s “Boxer Beetle”, and Evie Wyld’s “After the Fire, a Still Small Voice” gained the most with three votes each. I’m told these two are good choices, although I have yet to read […]

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Book Challenge List Test

Test your knowledge of the List of Novels by trying the Facebook based Book Challenge List.  Follow this link: http://apps.facebook.com/booklistchallenge/List/?l=322 The average number of Novels selected from our list by our readers is currently 42.

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Review of L’équipée malaise by Jean Echenoz

In the postscript in this novel, Jean Echenoz states that he wants to destabilise the novel from within.  He certainly has a talent for destabilising the reader. This novel is the story of two men who once loved the same women.  However, they never realise this fact until the last.  They have various adventures across […]

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This site is always open to new writing, as Margaret Atwood says, new ways of using this story transmission device which most people know as the Novel. The World Book Night event recently opened our eyes to some new up-coming literary talent, and some of these new writers need to be considered as potential candidates […]

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Vote result on Dystopian Novels

Not so many voters this time on our list of dystopian novels.  No wonder as it was such a downer. However, the proposal to add the most “popular” dystopian novel to our “List of Novels you might want to read in your life-time if you get half the chance” has a winner: – The Handmaid’s […]

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The List of Novels already contains More’s Utopia and Orwell’s 1984, two of the best examples of Utopias and Dystopias known to the literary canon. Others also on our list, such as Huxley’s Brave New World or Bradbury’s Farenheit 451, created the perfect world which soon turned into their own visions of hell on earth. […]

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Polling has now closed – Thanks to all our voters. We have the results on the proposal to add some of the World Book Night selection of Novels to the List of Novels you might want to read in your life-time if you get half the chance: Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi […]

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Review of L’Incident by Christian Gailly

In a sense the story is actually secondary to the literary work of Gailly.  The chapters are set out in different phases, which relate to the different parts of the relationship between the two protagonists.  Marguerite Muir, the dentist and hobby-pilot, who gets her hand-bag snatched in Paris, and Georges the older-man who finds her […]

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Review of L’occupation by Annie Ernaux

At only 76 pages, this novel was almost simply a pamphlet, telling the story of a woman’s decent into obesession following the end of a relationship.  Of course, this “occupation” and invasion of her mind was not due to despair, but because of her incredible jealousy over the other woman. This novel will not appeal […]

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