Please introduce yourself

[Skadi]

Thank you for adding me to the group. I am a writer, originally from Germany, but writing in English - the most neutral language for me. I have published my first book 'Hexe' in August 2013, which is available on amazon.com. I am an avid reader and thinking that words should be used with care. Words are a magical tool. Most writers nowadays are aiming to earn a lot of money and fame. But, writers still do have a responsibility. A written word is like an incision made by a scalpel. Not to hurt, but to heal. Entertainment is all around - but at which cost? Timeless are the writers before the internet. Their words still inspire us, heal us, challenge us. Many books written today will be forgotten soon, but our old writers, those who have used a mere type writer to put their words down, always will be there. Why? Fame and money was never a priority for them, but to be read. To interact with the human mind and heart. Sometimes to challenge, sometimes to heal and sometimes to show their love which each human heart possesses. I feel I am writing in this tradition. Successful? Oh yes, if one, only one response is: 'I have read your book. I loved it!'No writer, true writer, should prostitute their words for money.

[Skadi]

my book was only to be mentioned to introduce myself, with no link. My main focus was on introducing myself as a writer

[Robert]

Hello my name is Robert and I am an avid reader as well as a Goodreads author. I enjoy talking literature of all ranges, especially drama and crime.

[Laurentiu]

Hello, I'm Laurentiu from Romania. My favorite genres are Historical Fiction - I prefer Ancient Rome; Fantasy,SF and Classic literature. I'm not shy and I'll read anything you throw at me or whatever my mood demands.

[Collins]

Hello, am Collins. It's always a great thing to be around like minds. I'm an avid reader and ardent writer. I nurse great love for the Classics, and am also partial towards Fantasy/Myth/Thrillers/Mystery/Literary Fiction. I have one Myth/Fantasy book so far published.

Hoping to have a nice time here. Thank you.

[Linzi]

Hi! Thanks for adding me!

I'm an avid reader and trying my best to get through the classics and of course anything else that catches my eye along the way :-)

Looking forward to the conversations in this group.

Linzi x

[Adriano]

Hello,

I'm Ade, I love Literature, the classics, poetry, epic poetry, classical literature, comparative literature and literary theory...

This forum is a great idea! And it's what we need! Pull down the barriers: just quality books and quality discussions.

[Daniel]

Hi, all.

I enjoy contemporary literary fiction, classic noir, poetry, and the occasional (or more often than that) a guilty pleasure read.

I look forward to engaging conversations about the literary arts.

[Angelo]

Hello Everyone,

My name is Angelo and this topic crossed my eyes because I tried so often in high school to get out of reading the classics only to turn to them later in life and really enjoy (most) of them. I love to idea of adult sitting around chatting about classic book. I also like others who don't assume that all 'classic' books are great; I believe their are also some classic stinkers! I love lively debate about all books. I al not only into the classics, but also modern suspense, mysteries, and thrillers.....mixed with some autobiographies, and non fiction. I just had surgery on my back, so the only good thing that comes out of that is more time to read. If you think along my mindset, drop me a line....or if you don't think along my mindset drop me a line anyway! I believe that is how all good discussions get started. A little about me personally, I am 38, a peri-operative Registered Nurse, I LOVE what I do, I have recently married my husband who I have been lucky to know and love for 20 years. The one problem in the relationship: he doesn't read anything without large glossy pictures of celebrities! I unfortunately need to go outside the marriage for those needs! Seriously looking forward to meeting many new people!

[Amelia]

Hi,

I'm Amelia and come from the other side of the fence. I'm looking forward to chatting about literature and other subjects which are dear to my heart.

[Kit]

Hello everyone,

I'm Kit, I am a horror author from England. Happy to be part of this group and look forward to joining in with discussions.

[Amelia]

Literature

If all the words tumbled from a famous tome,
And could be carefully reassembled in the fullness of time,
Who would be the best person to be sure,
If the new work in hand was literature?

A.S.

[Amelia]

Giuseppina wrote: "Amelia wrote: "Literature

If all the words tumbled from a famous tome,
And could be carefully reassembled in the fullness of time,
Who would be the best person to be sure,
If the new work in hand ..."

Hi Pina, Love you to...

[Rick]

I am so excited about this group! Perfect idea. I was beginning to think GR was all vampires, werewolves and naked parts.

Like many of you, I love a well-written story—one with subtext and stands (or could stand) the test of time. I primarily read literary fiction but who can turn away a classic.

I am also a writer. I'd love to get people's feedback. (And will ask for such in the appropriate folder.)

I look forward to connecting with you. Feel free to friend me.

Rick Bettencourt

[Martyn]

Hello all,

I'm Martyn, I'm in the process of writing an epic fantasy series called 'The Deathsworn Arc' which touches on faith, pragmatic morality and atheism. Book 1 is available, book 2 is, but I'm uploading hopefully the definitive version in a few days and book 3 is in the process of being edited.



I'm currently reading a historical fiction called 'Pillars of the Earth' by Ken Follet and reporting on how I'm finding it in my status updates:-



I'm finding 'Pillars' fascinating to read. I've never read historical fiction before and I'm really enjoying most of it. It's very raw in places though - perhaps a little closer to the bone than I'd like. It's very dark too, and not to everyone's taste. Certain characters are somehow a little 'over-the-top' too, I like villains who have at least one redeemable feature or one noble motive. Having said that, the characters motivations seem realistic - if not just.

[Roger]

Mesdames et messieurs, an introduction. I'm Roger, reader and writer, living in genteel poverty in sunny Portugal where I have a little guesthouse. This group sounds great to me; my literary tastes are very varied, from Kafka to Sedaris and everything in between, so difficult to pigeonhole. I have been writing for a number of years and will add a thread for my current novel, Flight Into Darkness.

[Chris]

Hello, I'm Chris, originally from Sheffield, England, but I've lived around now for so many years that I'm capable of forgetting where I'm from... Or does just mean I'm getting old?

My debut novel, Wood, Talc and Mr.J, will be out in 3 or 4 weeks time, and as for reading, I'm a big fan of historical fiction...

Great idea for a thread, by the way...

[Chris]

Thanks, Giuseppina, I'll get myself over there today at some point :-)

[Angelo]

Hello! I have similar historial fiction interests. What would you receommend as great reads in this area? Thanks! Angelo

[Mandysan]

Hello everyone here. I'm Mandy from outside New York City. Currently reading Major Pettigrew's Last Stand. I look forward to reading your entries and contributing my own. Thank you!

[David]

Hello Giuseppina,

Apologies for barging in late. I'd already started talking before introducing myself. I sense that good manners are expected on this thread, and that suits me fine. Another positive is that I seem to have stumbled on the one kind of fiction that has always most appealled to me - namely literary fiction. I do read and enjoy thrillers and even romance writing, but they are the digestif to the main meal. By the way, writers who are interested in money ... What! Surely not! ... may be interested in my recently launched Quagga Prize for Literary Fiction, closing date for entry June 30; q.v. www.quaggabooks.net

[Jane]

As far As Vanity Fair goes, maybe it's the men who want rich wives. Rebecca sharp is only a governess - heavens Where is her dowry??! Note the play on her last name - sharp as in cunning!

[Jonathan]

Hi,

My name is Jonathan - or Jon - Mills: my friend and fellow writer & reader Clive S. Johnson very kindly invited me to join this group. I'm looking forward to exploring the threads and seeing what others have to say!

[Jonathan]

Giuseppina wrote: "Jonathan wrote: "Hi,

My name is Jonathan - or Jon - Mills: my friend and fellow writer & reader Clive S. Johnson very kindly invited me to join this group. I'm looking forward to exploring the thr..."

Thank you very much, Giuseppina. I do indeed hope to post my own thoughts, as well as reading those of others. I heartily agree with your intention for the forum to be collegial.

Thanks again,

Jon.

[Jane]

Wow, another writer. I can only dream of going to Greece but once I read your book, i might not want to! Welcome!

[Annie]

Hello. I'm Annie. I love reading, writing (though I think I suck at it :P), watching TV and listening to music. :)

[Barry]

Hello thank you for asking me to join the group I have been on good reads a while but so busy writing I have not had the pleasure of chatting to many people.

I will let you go to my author page to find details of my book as I know I must not promote it on here, just to say I am a writer as well as a reader of others books.

I first started reading Ken Follett mainly because he used to live near me.

Happy postings

Barry

[Nikolai]

Hello everyone, I'm Nick and I'm from Candada. I really love the classics, poetry, and all things literature. Looking forward to joining in on the discussion!

[Payten]

My name is Payten and I am from the U.S. I really love reading classic books and am always looking for a place to discuss them!

[Tyler]

My name is Tyler and I am from the U.S. I am currently in the Master's Program at Arcadia University in Glenside, Pennsylvania. I love to read literature of all genres and I am currently working on a YA Fantasy novel that is in the infant stages of development. This group sounds like a great place to discuss literature. I am currently reading Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I will gladly post my thoughts on this classic when I am finished.

[Tyler]

Giuseppina wrote: "Hello Tyler,

Welcome and please accept my apologies for responding so late; I was on holiday away from computers (and timetables) in sunny Andalusia.
Crime and Punishment is one of my all time fa..."

Thank you very much Pina. No need for apologies. I wish I could go on vacation in Andalusia. I hope you had a great time.

Tyler

[Josh]

Hi Guys,

I'm Josh - a writer-director from Hollywood by way of Boston.

My new novel "The Dude Who Did Dictionaries" is now available on Amazon via Kindle Direct as a KDP Selection - www.amazon.com/dp/B00M0DUI8Y

http://www.vimeo.com/picknroll

[G.]

Hello...My name is Greg, writing under the pen name G. Eric Francis. I have written 3 books, including my latest that I just released this week that you will find tagged below. Glad to meet everyone!A Beginning, No Middle, And An End

[Jeron]

Greetings,

I'm Jeron McCall, I've always liked reading, and I've written and self-published two novels:

http://amzn.com/1499626304
http://amzn.com/1495969193

[Wendy]

hello am Wendy, its interesting to be in this group.thank you

[LG]

Hello,

I like how far-flung this little group’s membership is! My name is Lane, and I’m writing from Abu Dhabi. I’ve spent years teaching literature to teenagers, so the discussions here will be a refreshing change. I’m too choosy to be an avid reader, I think, but I love to write and talk about what I read. Looking forward to doing this.

Lane

[LG]

Giuseppina wrote: "Welcome to the group. I think you are in good company with choosy readers here. I myself almost only read the classics. We are colleagues too, I'm a teacher in my other life ..."

Thanks, Pina! I thought I would be able to post something sooner, but life just keeps you busy sometimes, doesn’t it? So I’ve just posted a review of The House of Mirth in the Reviews forum. Lots of interesting things to read in the other forums!

Lane

[LG]

Giuseppina wrote: "Yes, life gets very hectic some times. What a great review! I've just read it; you really know how to write a review."

Thanks, Pina – I’m so glad you enjoyed it! Hoping to read reviews by other group members soon.

[Mike]

Hello everyone - I joined this group a few weeks ago but don't seem to have introduced myself. I'm the author of two travel memoirs, a book about climate change and a novel, with more fiction to come next year. I'm English but live in New York, where my day job is low-level international bureaucrat.

I like biographies, memoirs, history and good-quality fiction, and have mastered the subway technique of holding a heavy hardback in one hand and hanging on for dear life with the other.

[Mike]

Giuseppina wrote: "Hello and welcome, Mike.

Hardback? Nice and old fashioned!

Pina"

From buying long out-of-print books on Amazon - they often are hardback! I do also use a Kindle and have grown to respect it, though it lacks personality.

[Thomas]

Hello to All:

The e-book version of my novel, Slipping on Pine Needles, will be available tomorrow (December 12) at no cost.

http://www.amazon.com/Slipping-Pine-N...

Here's a summary of the book:

Jim McConnell, a laid-off newspaper reporter, takes a job in the coastal town of Rockport, Massachusetts. Early on he encounters Laura Cole, a bookstore owner and former professor of history at Harvard. Together they embark on a project that takes them to distant places and deep into the lives of the people they meet. During their journey of discovery they confront difficult questions that touch upon emotions, the soul and, ultimately, life and death.

Happy Reading!

[David]

Hello, I'm Dave and I need advice on how to post reviews on Good Reads. Simple, I suspect, but the button-pressing is beyond me. By posting reviews I mean my reviews of others' books and reviews of my own books that others have given.

[Chris]

Hiya, Dave.

These things aren't always so clear.

You first click onto the relevant book, and then you rate it, by giving it the amount of stars out of 5, and the option to review it should come up immediately, as you actually click onto the stars.

I hope that makes sense.

Good luck

[Jeremy]

hello my name is jeremy young - I am poet from ilkley yorkshire

I have a collection of poems called the blue book available from amazon - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blue-Book-Jer...
and currently putting together a second collection

my website is blue media - http://bluemedia68.blogspot.co.uk/

and you can also follow me on twitter - @bluemedia68

I am always happy to receive feedback, and would be very interested in collaborating on projects

[Laureen]

Hi, my name is Laureen and I am Australian. I have been addicted to GRs for some time now and only recently have become involved with "groups" but only ones that don't require set books to be read and discussed.

I am a fervent lover of historical fiction and historical fantasy but I will read anything that has a message that helps me understand how we got where we are today, evolution of our humanity, anything with meaning. I love to read fiction based in countries I know nothing about but the background must be well researched. I am not into horror, chic-lit, futuristic literature or poetry which I am ashamed to say I just don't get unless it is simple.

I do like to read some light novels between heavy stuff but the writing has to be good and preferably some originality with some humour (love Jewish humour). I also like some non-fiction but best when it reads like fiction. Well, that's me! Thanks for letting me be a part of the discussions here.

Ciao. L.

[[deleted user]]

I am a fan of Naguib Mahfouz and Dostoyevsky. I also write stuff.

I wouldn't read fiction for twenty-five years. One current project is to explore particularly European fiction of the second half of the twentieth century. Christa Wolf and George Perec are on the list.

I would also like to find good non-genre contemporary fiction. I suspect if it exists it is self-published. It is hard to find.

[Delisha]

Hello All Im Delisha I love to read and for a LONGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG time I only read VC Andrews, Stephen King, John Grisham books minus a couple of books that just grabbed my attention in weird times like The Clan of the Cave Bear series , To Kill a Mockingbird , a few Laurell K Hamilton's now I am expanding my horizons and reading more genres such as biographies written about tough subjects like James Frey's A Million Pieces and My Friend Leonard , classics like The Thorn Birds and currently The Catcher In The Rye next on my list is The Call of Cthulhu and other Weird Stories (about a week from now) hoping to find other genres and writers to read .

[Sam]

Hello, I'm Sam from Poland. I mainly read fantasy/sf, but I love to explore writers from different countries. I don't read much new books, use a library too often to supply for my needs even if my bookshelves are rather full.

[David]

The Novel and Other Fictions (From Telling Tales, Chapter 1,)

What is a novel? Is it not simply a made-up story that entertains? Thousands of books have been written on this question and many thousands more are no doubt forthcoming, which suggests that the novel is far from dead. But when was it born?

The novel has now been and gone. It arrived in the Eighteenth Century with Defoe, Fielding and Richardson and was immediately blown apart by Sterne and somewhat later by Joyce. I speak of course of the English novel we all know and love, and not translations.

But how can this be? Put the answer this way - that aspects of the novel are an essential part of our everyday lives and always have been. We love stories, ‘real’or imagined. They take us to new countries, different ages and alien climbs, but above all they put us in a privilged position inside another consciousness. As for the novel as a genre, is it not simply a matter of definition? Let’s just call them all stories, playing down specificity of location and the penetration of a central consciousness and all that sine qua non of the so-called Rise of the Novel. After all, what about Matthew ‘Monk’ Lewis? And Mrs Radcliffe and all those other fictions that are swept into the Romance basket, unworthy of the precious novel category?

Are Radcliffe and Lewis unworthy of celebration as novelists? But are they really novelists, or are they just fantastic storytellers? In any case we are all writing our own story in our heads even while waiting for the bus or watching the box. Everyone has a novel inside them we’ve been told. The plot of our intenal ongoing novel changes from moment to moment, scraps of it even get into letters or diaries, the best bits probably kept to ourselves. Most of our mental scribbling never gets into print, and just as well. Every day a blank screen to be filled with fresh palimpsest, infinitely erasable matter.

So let’s begin with the novel, which arrived so late in the fictional enterprise and lasted possibly two hundred years and see just how much the science of novelistics has fallen short in its exclusiveness. Some believe that the first word and maybe the last has already been said by the so-called Master, Henry James. Thus Katherine Lever in The Novel and the Reader: A Primer for Critics maintains: ‘In contrast to the novel, much fiction is composed in accordance with a formular.’ In her Appendix she lists ‘literary works which seem like novels … but are not novels.’ She selects for exclusion, among others, Troilus and Criseyde, Brave New World, The Pilgrim’s Progress, Animal Farm and Gulliver’s Travels.

Wayne Booth, who goes a long way with James on the road to realism, agrees with James ‘that the most human themes are those that reflect the moral ambiguities of life.’ He only parts company with James over the use of commentary by a so-called ‘intrusive’ author, such as Fielding: ‘There is a radical difference,’ Booth points out, ‘between those who seek some form of realism as an end in itself … and those for whom realism is a means to other ends,’ presumably someone like Fielding or George Eliot, whose commentaries within their novels work against realism. He continues, ‘On the one hand there are explicitly didactic authors, ranging from allegorists like Bunyan to philosophical propagandists like Sartre … and satirists like Swift and Voltaire who will clearly sacrifice realism whenever their satirical ends require the sacrifice.’

Henry James’s Prefaces had become the yardstick for measuring the quality and depth of a novel until Robert Scholes and Robert Kellogg’s The Nature of Narrative (1966) caused a revision in thinking. An examination of particular passages in their chapter ‘Character in Action’ proves that ‘There is more of myth and of fiction in Don Quixote than in Isabel Archer [The Portrait of a Lady]. There is more of mimesis in her. She may be quixotic but he is Quixote. She may be typical but he is archetypal. Yet in their different ways they both live.’ So James’s ‘air of reality (solidity of specification) the supreme virtue of a novel’ proves to be for Scholes and Kellogg ‘hopelessly novel-centred.’ The major point is that, whether we call a work a novel or not, there are many different forms of realism.

In this book I am to some degree following the pattern of Dorothy Van Ghent, whose The English Novel/Form and Function (1953) examines 18 novels from Cervantes to Joyce, neither of whom, incidentally, is English. Welcome then, Cervantes and Joyce, to the English novel! One may wonder why Van Ghent fails to glance at any work from the Elizabethan or the Medieval epochs in her study, especially given their abundance of tales, but then tales are not strictly novels. Or are they?

The first English novel Van Ghent deals with is John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. (Move over, Bunyan, Henry James has already scrubbed your name from the canon.) She then contrasts two passages, one from the beginning of the book and another from Part 2. The first concerns Christian’s burden which symbolically stands for sin, while the second refers to the medicine that his son Matthew is prescribed for his very real stomach-ache, ‘which he could have had from eating real green plums, but which he could scarcely have felt as a consciousness of guilt.’ Van Ghent draws our attention also to ‘the delicate psychological acumen’ of his mother in asking how her son’s medicine tastes. All these details, the critic notes, ‘have the directness and animation of life.’

Although she begins her work on the English Novel with Bunyan, Van Ghent could profitably have looked back another 300 years to Chaucer, who admittedly used verse form, but whose life-like characters and whose use of colloquial diction in his dialogue make him a ‘modern’ before his time.

Erich Auerbach’s ambitious and comprehensive Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (1953) occupied me only in its later stages, in which he focusses on ‘the new realists’ such as Zola, Proust and Joyce. It is not surprising that English fiction takes up only a fraction of the final chapter. It begins, happily enough for me, with Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse: ‘And even if it isn’t fine tomorrow,’ said Mrs Ramsay …’ - and taking my cue from Auerbach I begin each of my chapters likewise by, after a brief author intoduction, plunging more or less straight into the books themselves.
(Contact davejames_writer@hotmail.com for update on my book.)