Penguin Classics

This was the first horror novel I remember reading and it will forever hold a special place in my heart. What struck me first was the style of writing - Stoker was a very technologically advanced man, in step with the advancements of his generation, because the novel takes the somewhat splintered form of diary entries; journals and even phonographs! In this way we are given multiple points of view, none of which seem obtrusive or ill-conceived. In fact, in many ways these add to the uniqueness of the story and give us far more detail then a straight forward linear narrative. ..read more

I first read Kidnapped while at school and since then have read it several times. It is better read with a map of Scotland to hand. It is set in 1751 and, on the surface, is a tale of the adventures of the young David Balfour, who is kidnapped while seeking to claim his inheritance and taken aboard a ship bound for the Carolinas. The ship founders off the west coast of Scotland and David has to make his way back to Edinburgh. This is during the aftermath of the 1745 Jacobite rebellion.

John Bunyan started to write after 1660 with the restoration of the monachy, and the resusitation of old anti-conformist legislation, his preaching led to imprisonment for twelve years in Bedford Goal. The resultant increase of literary output culminated in Grace Abounding, one of the finest books on religious experience ever written. In 1672 Charles ll, realizing that this policy of suppression was accomplishing nothing, used is royal perogative to issue a Declaration of Indulgence . As a result Bunyan was set free. ..read more

OTHELLO - this is a catchy tale of love won, love lost and a manipulator being out manipulated. Why is this called Othello? He is just the poor dupe who never stood a chance. Surely this should be called Iago? After all, he is the main character sitting in the centre of the web, spinning lies and drawing the other characters into his plans for revenge. There he wraps them up in their own desires and fears until he causes the death of not only his enemy but the two innocent women, his own wife and Othello's.

TARKA THE OTTER was one of the books I did as part of my English Literature Teaching Course at University. Mum has recently given me special copy of this book a comemerative edition by the Folio Society in 2005. This edition was reprinted with a new forward by Paul Schofield - The text of this edition follows that of the 1964 Nonesuch Cygnet edition, which includes the author's final revisions.

Having read Mill on the Floss by George Eliot I was not overly keen to read Silas Marner for my local reading circle, but I thought I'd give it a whirl and see if could overcome my resistance to it. Well I'm glad I did because it's wonderful and a story very much as relevant today as it was in the 18oo's.

There have been so many adaptations and retellings of HG Wells' War of the Worlds on radio, film and music that it is easy to forget about the original novel upon which the whole phenomenon is based. Orson Welles' 1938 radio rendering had many of the more gullible elements of the USA's north-eastern states fleeing for the hills; Jeff Wayne's popular 1985 musical was a top-selling LP; and more recently Tom Cruise posed and grimaced his way through Steven Spielberg's modern-day-America retelling.