LITERARY BENT – Writing at its best

Born in New England Charles Palliser is an American citizen but has lived in the United Kingdom since the age of three. He went up to Oxford in 1967 to read English Language and Literature and took a First in June 1970. He was awarded the BLitt in 1975 for a dissertation on Modernist fiction. From 1974

A man-made plague has swept the earth, but a small group survives, along with the green-eyed Crakers – a gentle species bio-engineered to replace humans. Toby, onetime member of the Gods Gardeners and expert in mushrooms and bees, is still in love with street-smart Zeb, who has an interesting past. The Crakers’ reluctant prophet, Snowman-the-Jimmy,

A beautifully written study in melancholy set in a Swiss hotel by a lake. Edith Hope has gone to regain her composure on the advice of friends after an affair. Full of sly humour and rendered in delicate prose, this is a gently entertaining read for which Brookner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Brookner) won the Booker Prize of 1984. Anita

In the dying days of the Ottoman Empire in 1908 Basil Pascali is a spy who reports regularly to Istanbul on the activities of the local people on his Aegean island. His reports are never acknowledged or seemingly acted upon, although his regular payment continues to come through. He expects to be found out at any

Packed with detail and displaying an evident love of the subject Melvyn Bragg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melvyn_Bragg) gives us the story of the Christianization of the North of England in the seventh century. The book shines a fictional light onto the warring, pagan Dark Ages. An outstanding blend of passion and erudition. Melvyn Bragg 800 pages in Sceptre

‘Ad majorem Dei Gloriam’ – ‘To the greater glory of God’ is the motto of the Society of Jesus. It can also be understood as the aim of constructing all the buildings and creative works of art which are really hymns in stone, word and music to the divine. Golding (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) gives us Dean Jocelin who determines

Raphael (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Raphael) presents a sample of the generation who went to Cambridge in the 1950s and their subsequent careers. Incredibly witty with beautifully realised characters this is a pure pleasure of a read. The six part 1976 TV mini series, from which the book was adapted, (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073999/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm) is with Tom Conti, Barbara Kellerman, Leonard Sachs and Nigel