Complex plot, one has to pay close attention, but a page turner with interesting characters and good historical interest.

One of my favourite themes and periods - 19thC grave robbing and early medical history... Realy, really atmospheric writing and very believable characters in an intriguing plot.

Yep, great writing, good characterisation, good descriptive of America and american life, but the ending got a widge too convoluted and started to defy my ability to suspend disbelief. But well worthwhile for all the good things, I'll read more Kimball...

Account of the Georgian murder in London and it's factual background I found interesting, but the other 2/3rds of the book, a debate about the mores of the ongoing reportage of it, lost me completely. Too much premised on too little, couldn't finish it...

Hope I haven't given the story away with my tag! Not a normal plot - you only realise 3/4 through. My favourite Faulks, and that's saying summat...

My first fiction by Block - I had read his 'how to' on writing the novel. Great characterisation, great story, with evocative descriptions of New York and it's people in the aftermath of 9/11. Check out the sex life of Susan the art dealer - can you really, physically do those things? I must get out more...

Story of a would-be biographer biographing another biographer!!!
I'm a huge fan of AS Byatt but I always seem to get to one part of her books where I get bogged down by the detail and just have to move forward and pick up the story later. This one, I had to miss out most of the book - not for me, very disappointing.

My first Dibdin but I will search out his others. Smashing characterisation and very funny. Simple desires, well raucous sex, actually, in leafy Oxford, leading to despicable murder.

Love Boyd, love this - keeps you guessing right to the end. Great writing as ever.

Story of brodcaster and journalist Joyce Maynard's relationship with legendary writer JD Salinger, who was 35 years older. I , ihaven't read anything else about Salinger, so can't vouch for the balance of the account. But it seems to be an honest, believeable, in-depth account considering that the author was a teenager at the time. It's beautifully written and most illuminating of such relationships.

Brilliant, I loved this book. Based on the true story of Grace Marks, convicted with er supposed lover of murdering her employer and his mistress in the 1840's. Margaret Atwood brings characters alive as few other authors can, her people step of the page in 3D and talk in your company!

Each letter of the alphabet, each capter, represents the name of a place in Pietro's history. The places do not pop up in normal life sequence but flashback to pivotal scenarios. Early and fairy experimental in Faulk's career. At first, hard to decipher a narrative, but worth sticking with as when the stoy clicks it has the more power for the format.

I bought this book to understand 'Ulysses' so that, after ten years, I might get into it. I had done 'Dubliners' for 'A' level. This book illuminates and enriches both and I re-read and got much more from Dubliners and am now, at last, enjoying 'Ulysses'. Lucid, direct discussion from a master. Covers 'Portrait' and 'Finnegan's' as well.

This book was my 'A' level set book and I enjoyed it as narrative without understanding much of its significance. I got Bolt's preface to Joyce, as a prelude to another attempt at 'Ulysses' and re-read it. It's deep and experimental, but a good read at the same time. A great insight into Dublin just before WW1 and humanity in general, take what you want, it's here.

Very useful book by two trusted and lauded poets. Gives a nice background to the major poetic forms, Villanelle, Sestina, Pantoum, etc., and ideas why each could be deployed. A good anthology of poems in its own right, it is as an exemplar rather than a direct 'how to' manual, that it is most useful.

Clear, lucid, downt-to-earth approach to reading and writing poetry expected of Mary Oliver. This book covers metrics in a nice friendly manner. Nice colection of 50 metrical examples. Not the be all and end all on the subject but a good introduction.

I've had this book for ten years and it has defied my understanding. This year I got Bolt's 'Preface to James Joyce' and it has given me the tools to understand Joyce and this immense ground-breaking book. Slowly but surely I'm enjoying it, and it's worth the effort. But it's not a page turner; for literature addicts really!

Brings out the more temporal aspects of the famous friendship and its fractures. Great insight into the poets' circle and times. Clear and lucid writing, as ever A.S Byatt.

Smashing version of the Ilyad if you find direct translations hard going. Great, novel poetry, but it reads enough like a novel to keep the pages turning.

Excellent book for insights into the personal love-lives of Gabriel & Lizzie, Holman Hunt, John Ruskin, Effie & Millais, Ned & Georgie, Morris & Janie, and combinations thereof! Wonderful insights into victorian piano legs and their covers!

Brilliant, brilliant Larkin; very few writers' inner lives live on in such splendid detail through their poetry as this.

This book covers the basic essentials for the starting/improving poet. Written in Mary Oliver's inimitable clear, solid language, it has enough classic excerpts to inspire generally and to teach specific poetry concepts. Mary Oliver's life and love of writing, and teaching shines through.

(The book I have appears to be a 1988 edition, maybe 3rd)
Still, for me, the best book of its kind. Ample coverage of criticism, enough poetics to enhance anyone's learning curve, and very well indexed. Erudite and clear, nuff' said!

Jan Marsh is a reliable biographer of the Pre-Raphaelite Circle. Excellent coverage and commentary on the poetic works of Christina. This book brings the poet, her limited world, her family and her inner problems to life. Enlightening, sensistive sequences exploring the possibility of teenage incest. The book illuminates what would now be 'women's rights' issues, and in particular victorian paternalism.

Essential, inspirational book for my daily meditations. It's the one I would take to my desert island; if I could only take one!