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Original poster

Which authors' success is a complete mystery to you?

503 replies

emkana · 13/01/2008 19:15

Tony Parsons

Jodi Picoult

OP posts:
Vacua · 13/01/2008 21:41

that's the only one I've read

am trying to remember if have ever read chicklit beyond those days when bridget jones was a column in the independent - read notting hell finally, that is chicklit?

Artichokes · 13/01/2008 21:41

John Steinbeck and George Elliot are my all time favorite authors. I cannot beleive they have been mentioned on this thread. They have bought me hours and hours of joy and I am that they being put in a category that include Jodi "one plot" Piccoult, Celia "nepotism" Ahern and Marianne "free magazine giveaway" Keynes.

SorenLorensen · 13/01/2008 21:41

Oi! That I was at school with Andrea Ashworth's sister is my only (pitiful) claim to fame and not one of you has even managed to muster an "ooh, did you?"

UnquietDad · 13/01/2008 21:42

Make up your mind stillaslow!
We've been in the same room then... spooky...

SorenLorensen · 13/01/2008 21:43

If sun does stream through my kitchen windows it just makes me notice how filthy they are.

UnquietDad · 13/01/2008 21:43

Mike Gayle is bloke chick-lit.

SorenLorensen · 13/01/2008 21:43

I bet Kates and Amandas have sparkly clean windows (probably shagging the window cleaner though).

stillaslowreader · 13/01/2008 21:45

Kate. Definitely. The same room at the same time?

SenoraParsnip · 13/01/2008 21:52

who is andrea ashworth?

SorenLorensen · 13/01/2008 21:52

Her younger sister was at school with me, SP

SorenLorensen · 13/01/2008 21:56

Once In a House on Fire (it's very good and very well written, despite being of the "My Life Has Been So Much Worse Than Yours" genre)

Pan · 13/01/2008 21:57

Stillasslowreader.

You are now designated as barbarian of the universe.

George Eliot as a "complete mystery"..

you have noo idea of Middlemarch??

Pan · 13/01/2008 21:59

Julian Barnes..

utter shite writer.

Always knew it, then saw him being interviewed and that confirmed his posy-but-empty landscape.

Nightynight · 13/01/2008 21:59

Martin Amis

Jodi Picoult

Michel Houbecq

ooh yes, Tolkein

Patrick Suskind

Louis de Bernieres - well researched, but he doesnt really have a CLUE about what he is writing about!

this thread is soo cathartic.

Oh, and that Unquiet Dad bloke

stillaslowreader · 13/01/2008 21:59

Oh yes I have I have dissected Middlemarch and laid open every nerve and artery and I CAN'T STAND IT!

Nightynight · 13/01/2008 22:01

Perhaps you have over-studied it?
It is a wonderful book!

IorekByrnison · 13/01/2008 22:01

Iain Banks. Why does anyone like Iain Banks?

stillaslowreader · 13/01/2008 22:01

But may change my name to Barbarian of the Universe as that describes me perfectly.

SenoraParsnip · 13/01/2008 22:01

right.

ooo, were you at school with her sister then?

I would love it if someone I was at school with became famous. or if one of their siblings did. but it's highly unlikely, as they were a bunch of ne'er-do-wells.

Pan · 13/01/2008 22:01

In that case you have no salvation. Bless your soul.

Middlemarch IS the finest novel in the history of the English launguage.

Nightynight · 13/01/2008 22:02

Oh who is that Me Me Me author? even his name sounds egocentric?
he is utter shite, anyway.

starfish2 · 13/01/2008 22:02

Yann Martell. I abandoned Life of Pi after about 50 pages. It was the first time that a book annoyed me so much I just stopped it. I still shudder just to think of it.
And then more or less the same happened with Rachael Cusk's In the Fold...
Very traumatic

Mommalove · 13/01/2008 22:02

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

rantinghousewife · 13/01/2008 22:02

Iain Banks? Is he the one who writes those crime noir type novels?

MaryAnnSingleton · 13/01/2008 22:02

yes, who is that nightynight ? what has he written ?