Product Description

Wondering what to read next? Let the experts help you out. When it comes to reading we are spoilt for choice, and that choice can be a little daunting. That's why this great guide to the world of fiction is every reader's best friend. Packed with accessible introductions to over 1,100 must-read authors and over 4,100 superb titles, the Good Fiction Guide is a book you'll go back to again and again, in the search for your next enthralling read. Every entry includes read-on suggestions for similar authors, helping you to discover great fiction by authors you might not have heard about before. The Good Fiction Guide also contains overviews by 34 best-selling authors introducing their favourite genre, and recommending their twelve favourite books. These include Nigel Williams writing about Humour, Val McDermid introducing Thrillers, and Michael Dibdin on Crime. Whatever your preference, from classics to crime, history to humour, short stories to science fiction, the Good Fiction Guide has it all covered. An indispensible guide for reading groups, serious bookworms, and anyone who would like to read more.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #236097 in Books
• Published on: 2005-07-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 548 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Reading is like a huge treasure hunt. Every book leads to another title. The Good Fiction Guide, which lists 5,000 different books by over 1,100 authors--from Achebe and Adams to Zelazny and Zola--provides useful extra sign posts. And because its subject is fiction--not literature- it ranges eclectically from Henry to Helen Fielding and from Anthony to Joanna Trollope. Thirty-four jargon-free essays by literary cognoscenti include Adele Geras writing entertainingly about teen novels, John Sutherland is informative on classics and Mike Harris thoughtful about war. Film adaptations, Western, and magic realism are among other topics covered. The alphabetical author listings give biographical details and an assessment of output followed by helpful cross-referencing. Below the John Creasey entry, for example, are listed Ed McBain, John Harvey and Colin Dexter to point the way through crime writing. If you like Dickens, try Thackeray, Dostoevsky, George Eliot and Peter Carey. Inevitably there are strange omissions. It's curious that children's author Philip Pullman is included but not Harry Potter's creator JK Rowling. Odd, too, that there is no mention of Paul Scott's The Jewel in the Crown or EM Forster's A Passage to India in the India essay. "Each essayist's "top twelve" is entirely his or her own choice," writes editor Jane Rogers. "I've rejoiced to find favourite books recommended, been outraged by the omission of equally good writers and been tempted into entirely new areas of fiction by the enthusiasm of essayists." --Susan Elkin

Mail on Sunday (You), Sunday, 26 June 2005
...the perfect book lover's companion... a good read. You'll never again be at a loss over what to read next.

Review
A welcome update, and a bright new boiled-sweets cover from the most reader-friendly guide on the reference shelf. A trustworthy companion for every reading group - or simply for the solitary seeker. (Boyd Tonkin, The Independent )

The perfect book lover's companion... a good read. You'll never be at a loss over what to read next. (Mail on Sunday - You Magazine )

Customer Reviews

A REALLY GOOD FICTION GUIDE
Good Fiction Guide is a comprehensive, near 500 page volume that, as the title suggests, lists throughout its covers quality writers and their books.This hugely satisfying tome has two main sections.The first quarter of GFG concentrates on "Subject essays", such as crime fiction, and then recommends twelve best books of the genre.
The rest of GFG is an A-Z of authors.Each writer in the list is given a profile, with brief life details and then suggests a good piece of their work to start with, moving you on to more complex books.It even then puts forward similar authors to try.
If you enjoy books that you can dig into at any time, you will love the GFG.I would suggest it should be on your bookshelf if you are a lover of good literature like me!