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.

Haruki Murakami - strange things will happen and ears will almost certainly involved. The plot is insane but you may well find some nicely poetic language (and more ears) during your read.

Kazuo Ishiguro - tedious characters who you don't much care about will wander being irritating and possibly repressed as well. Nobody will die anywhere near as quickly as the reader may hope for.

Ian McEwan - the writer will show you how very clever he thinks he is but you will almost certainly be bored and nobody will die anywhere near as quickly as the reader may hope for. In fact, some of them won't die at all - even though you want them to.

Jasper Ffffffffffffffffffffffffforder - there will be many jokes, few of which are actually amusing. You will be able to hear the writer laughing at his own jokes in glee. There will be a convoluted episode involving various characters you read about in English lessons at school and you will hear the author congratulating himself at having read a few books now and then. You may smile once when Miss Havisham drives But That Is All.

Sarah Waters - there will be the rustling of petticoats and some thought of sex - and probably some sex - or more thinking about sex. And more petticoats. There will be a so-called twist that you see coming from a distance of about 300 pages or a so-called twist that is so bad of a twist that you actually don't notice that you have been twisted at all because for you it happened three hundred pages ago. And there will be more rustling of petticoats. And a candle may go out. Or there will be a strange noise in the darkness. But you will have died of boredom by then anyway and won't notice.

Lee Childs
Reacher walks into town.
Has minor altercation with bad guys. Meets a local and discovers bad guys are doing bad things.
Provokes bad guys.
Gets the girl.
Has massive A team like battle and beats the bad guys.
Leaves town, and the girl.

Catherine Cookson;

Young nothern lass spends a lot of time on a horse and cart and lopping the heads off mackerel and avoiding the lasivious attentions of the Lord of the manor (who has a moustache).

Hilary Mantel

There's lots of guys in codpieces called Thomas. Some may be executed and some won't

Patricia Cornwell (recent books only). People are out to get heroine. Heroine feels superior to all around her. Strange murder. Paranoia. Solved.

tut MyCats

That only works for Wolf Hall, not all her others, which are ALL COMPLETELY DIFFERENT AND WORKS OF TOWERING GENIUS

tut

Shakespeare

There will be some cross dressing and some jokes that aren't funny. At some stage someone will talk to the audience and all the other characters bizarrely won't be able to hear them. At the end there will either be lots of dead bodies, or lots of weddings.

I loved Wolf Hall Hully, but got awfully confused by all the Thomases! can't wait for the sequel though!

Marge Piercey.
Girl escapes humdrum life. Gets involved with marches and alternative lifestyles of some sort. Becomes a lesbian, or at least dabbles. Unresolved ending.

I do love her books though.

James Joyce. Gobbledook shite and/or Irish people being all gloomy about being Irish people but then it snows so it's all OK again.

Mo Hayder. Irritating women have nasty nasty things done to them. Dysfunctional cop n.286 finds perp who has hangups about his under-developed todger/relationship with his mother. (Unless it's one of the ones set in Japan in which case a sword will be involved)

LOL Remus

Georgette Heyer: Extraordinarily, Regency England was exactly like 1930s England, only the servants enjoyed being servants even more in the old days.

Mary Wesley: old ladies think about sex shock horror

Barbara Pym: Sensible, smart middle class lady develops discreet crush on gay/godly man. A lot of tea is drunk. People are brisk, yet wistful.

Walter Mosley

Being a decent black Man in the Ghetto is hard shit. I get harassed by police and/or criminals all the f**king time.
But they pay me to do shiz so it's all ok

F Scott Fitzgerald

The may have dubious morals in these amazing 1920s but They look fabulously shallow. That's the best way to be
It does however cause issues for others but oh well! Party and glamour this way!

James Patterson - protaganist gets involves with inspirational local personage, or a woman. People get killed. Adorable children and put upon grandma placed in deadly peril. He tracks down evil wrong doer at much personal risk. Every month, or so it seems.

Porto don't forget all the drinking, sex and wingeng and macho posturing about the long hours and demanding work while spending all his time having a "well deserved break" and a beer, or some sex. Or both.

Oh - and they all sit on the porch a lot, eating cornbread.

Evelyn Waugh - life is shallow and meaningless unless you Have God in which case life is shallow and meaningless but at least you Have God.

JK Rowling - it's terribly exciting being a boy wizard but it doesn't half play havoc with one's hormones and one's love life and people just keep DYING all the time - still I get to shag Ginny at the end.

David Nichols: barely disguised chicklit, twist, limps to end.

E.M. Forester. Every character is a closet homosexual. High camp and hillarity ensues

Philip Roth - middle class dilemma (should we buy this new station wagon?) husband has affair or thinks about it; wife has affair or thinks about it.

Compare and contrast with BelleDame's:

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.

And then guess which one counts as literature.

David Mitchell: write 5 short stories in completely different styles, genres, time periods then splice them all together without rhyme or reason. Persuade reviewers this is groundbreaking new literary technique. Repeat to fade.