Sum up a novelists books in a few sentances............

[redrubyshoes]

Anita Brookner.

Middle aged woman lives alone in London. Goes for walks at dusk. Goes to Paris or nearly has an adventure/love affair. Goes home and continues her life of living in London. Alone. Going for walks at dusk. She speaks French though.

Marilyn French.

All men are bastards who use women as a receptacle to wank into and then leave them with the kids. Leave the bastards before they get the chance.

Barbara Cartland.

Girl meets horrid arrogant man and vows to never speak to him again. Girl meets nice but boring man and gets engaged to him. Horrid and arrogant man saves her from nice but boring man and kisses her. She falls in love with horrid and arrogant man because he is nice after all and marries him.

Louis de Bernieres

The whole of the history of Western civilisation in a book. And some love stories as well.

The Brontes

Men and moorland. And bad weather.

Esther Freud: Gosh, life is tough when the staff aren't very friendly and the swimming pool at the Tuscan villa gets cold in the evenings, isn't it?

Salley Vickers: Chin up old girl, husbands always play away and the way to deal with it is to be jolly (hockey sticks) and make friends with the mistresses. Have unfeasibly large incomes that don't really correspond to what you 'do' for a 'living' as well.

Ian McEwan: Men, huh? Rubbish, aren't we. But rather clever nonetheless, and massively talented, and aware of how rubbish, so that's OK. Here's another long long long long long convoluted sentence.

Susan Hill

Gun metal skies feature heavily.

Fucking love "Catherine Cookson - it's grim up north"

Conan-Doyle - Sherlock Holmes - completely impossible solution found by coke addict who keeps clues to himself and this removed possibility of anyone else solving mystery.

Oh oh I love Little House.

Tolstoy: Unhappy ladies. Unhappy men. War. Philosophy. Marriage.

Dan Brown - ancient secrets solved. Repeatedly.

Joanne Trollop - middle class dilemma (should we get cream or black Aga?); husband has affair or thinks about it; wife had affair or thinks about it; and so on.

Enid Blyton: Four children and a dog go on a picnic. They see some smugglers. They catch them.

David Lodge; Gosh being a Catholic is ridiculous. But if you're not a Catholic you have to have terrible unsatisfying sex with the woman on top or some such rubbish. Phew, turns out this cup of tea is the Holy Grail after all, so no need to change religion. Get off me, Androgyna!

Enid Blyton. The middle classes have jolly japes and adventures. Parents don't have much of a role to play.

Martin Amis

Thoroughly unpleasant people are thoroughly unpleasant to each other, with thoroughly unpleasant consequences.

Tony Parsons

Working-class boy made good meets impossibly beautiful, impossibly clever woman, who either a) dies, b) leaves or c) faffs about a bit before realising that this is as good as life is going to get. Some impossibly cute chuildren are probably also involved, as well as a difficult and ultimately tragically-cut-short relationship between the protagonist and his salt-of-the-earth parents, at least one of whom will die shortly after he has finally managed to tell them that he was never really ashamed of them, in spite of their lack of education/airs and graces/Le Creuset.

Janet Evanovich - Stephanie Plum books - Shag, marry, avoid with Ranger, Morelli and Diesel

Ahh, was trying to frame an Amis contribution ladywellian, that's perfect.

LOL at yours Hully.

joan, it made me wonder why I enjoy his books so much!

JRR Tolkien - story of a walking holiday on big feet.

Douglas Coupland: something odd happens to one or more young people working in the tech industry. At least one of them has crazy parents, and of these crazy parents, one is a drug dealer of some sort. There will be someone called Ethan somewhere in the story, who may or may not fall in love with a geeky girl with a name beginning with K. Something tragic happens close to the end. A sinister corporation is behind all of it.

Graham Greene: all men are at least slightly evil, and religiously conflicted. Their evils will be thwarted by a sparky woman of some kind, whether deliberately or inadvertantly.

Patricia Cornwell - mysterious dead body. Autopsys. FBI.

Autopsys? Autopsy.

Katie Fforde: girl moves to idyllic country cottage to get over being dumped by heartless bastard and concentrate on her surprisingly lucrative little hobby of painting old furniture/running wine-tasting courses/handcrafting bespoke staircases/crewing canal-boats. Falls for hunky Arctic-exploring next-door neighbour but is mysteriously unable to have a single sensible conversation with him without lapsing into babbling confusion, and 250 pages of 'hilarious' misunderstandings ensue before they suddenly discover mutual love and live happily ever after in rose-tinted bliss. Warning: reader may have thrown book across room before reaching this point

Sophie Kinsella - Girl loves shopping, girl spends too much, much "hilarity" ensues whilst trying not to spend too much, man saves her, all is happy

John Grisham - High powered legal whiz takes on case that no-one else will touch because it is a certain loss. Legal whiz loses case (whilst learning a minimum of 4 life lessons).

Kate Atkinson: lots of people all linked together in unlilely ways. Stuff happens.

unlikely eve.
P.D. James
Gorgeous artistocrat surrounded by broken Britain.

even even.
Henry James: rich American has life ruined by corrupt Europeans. Over and over. All sentences have to be minimum 40 words long.