Alan James Hollinghurst, FRSL, (born 26 May 1954, http://literature.britishcouncil.org/alan-hollinghurst and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Hollinghurst) is an English novelist, poet, short story writer and translator. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 1989 Somerset Maugham Award, the 1994 James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the 2004 Booker Prize for this novel, The Line of Beauty. The summary is […]

If your preference is for the controversial, try reading The Elementary Particles (2000) by Michel Houellebecq (http://www.houellebecq.info/english.php and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Houellebecq). This edition was a translation from the French by Frank Wynne. It has otherwise been translated as ‘Atomised’. The summary is simple enough. Bruno and Michel are half-brothers abandoned by their mother, an unabashed devotee of the drugged-out free-love

Geraldine Brooks (http://geraldinebrooks.com/) is a skilled writer whose 2005 novel, March, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Originally from Sydney, Australia, she became a US citizen in 2002. In this piece of historical fiction (inspired by the true story of Eyam) the scene is set when an infected bolt of cloth carries bubonic plague from London

Successful American novelist John Irving (http://john-irving.com/and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Irving) has published 19 works since his first – Setting Free the Bears in 1968. The one I’ve enjoyed most was his fifth, The Hotel New Hampshire (1981). This is a wildly eccentric family saga. John Berry is the son of a hapless dreamer, and brother to a cadre of crazy siblings. He