- Paperback: 544 pages
- Publisher: OUP Oxford; 2 edition (7 July 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0192806475
- ISBN-13: 978-0192806475
- Product Dimensions: 23 x 15.6 x 3.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 395,143 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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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
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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 )
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 )
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First Sentence
The classic adventure story is Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
The classic adventure story is Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. Read the first page
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Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
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!
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!
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a useful additional source to the Bloomsbury Good Reading Guide. Both have their limitations in terms of missing authors or skimpy coverage, not to mention the fact that the GFG is already 7 years old, which obviously limits its coverage of more recent novels. It tends to explore in depth just a few works and give no idea of what else the writer has produced (which the GRG to its credit does do, though only as a list). Its links to further reading are limited to a few writers' names not to actual novels (which GRG does better - but to GRG's discredit it doesn't include these further reading recommendations in the cumulative end-list).
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Like I *need* another thirty years worth of good reading....
9 Dec 2003
Format:Paperback
As both a very heavy reader of broad tastes and interests, and a librarian (i.e., a professional recommender of books), I'm always on the look-out for new lists of other people's reading recommendations. This one runs to nearly 500 pages, most of it in the form of brief, individually authored articles (from less than half a column in length to two-thirds of a page) on writers who mostly have been originally published in English, ranging from Defoe and Dickens to Patricia Cornwell and Neal Stephenson. There are also nearly three dozen topical essays -- Canada, Fantasy, Film Adaptations, The Sea, Teen, etc -- which I frankly found too idiosyncratic to be of much use. It took me several weeks to work my way slowly through this thing, notepad at hand to jot down authors and titles that were new to me, or which the reviewer convinced me I ought to reconsider. I filled more than a dozen pages, which means I can happily push this volume on other dedicated readers. Not that I don't have some caveats. No such book can be all-inclusive, of course, so I won't complain about the (in my opinion) excellent authors who were omitted. Though I'm annoyed that a relatively minor science fiction author from the '50s like John Wyndham is discussed, but not the innovative John Varley. On the other hand, can you even begin to talk about Robert Coover without mentioning his most widely-read novel, _The Universal Baseball Association, Inc.?_ Or Stephen King with no mention of _The Stand,_ which is as close as he has yet come to a magnum opus? There seems also to be a heavy emphasis on British writers, with many minor names being included out of proportion to less-known U.S. authors; this bias is not noted in the Introduction, but becomes obvious as you browse. Well, an editor's lot is never an easy one. But they really should have included a title index.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
A Nice Guide to Accessible Fiction
26 Nov 2006
Format:Paperback
The first third of this chatty guide to modern and classic adult fiction is a series of essays recommending key authors and titles in 34 various genres/topics/national literatures. Each is written by a writer or editor (mostly British) with "a special interest" in the the subject, although very few are household names (the two most well known are probably crime writers Michael Didbin and Val McDermid). The essays are about four or five pages, and include a "Top 12" list of the essayist's favorites in that area. While these are somewhat fun to dip into, like all such essays they are awfully idiosyncratic, and thus need to be taken with many grains of salt.
Nonetheless, the editors should be commended for highlighting a good deal of world literature, with essays devoted to: Africa, Australia/New Zealand, Canada, The Caribbean, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Russia, and the U.S. However, other than this particular coverage, readers should be aware that the authors and titles selected for mention have a very strong British emphasis. Authors were only included if they are well-known (in Britain), in print, or seminal to a particular topic or genre. However, while most selections may be available in the UK, some may be much harder to track down elsewhere.
The remaining two-thirds of the book are small biographies of 1,000+ authors, with indications as to their key works, and three "similar" writers. For example, if you like Nick Hornby, try Roddy Doyle, Kingsly Amis, or J.D. Salinger. On the whole, an attractive, accessible book to dip into to get some ideas of new stuff to read, but hardly the last word on the topic.
Nonetheless, the editors should be commended for highlighting a good deal of world literature, with essays devoted to: Africa, Australia/New Zealand, Canada, The Caribbean, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Russia, and the U.S. However, other than this particular coverage, readers should be aware that the authors and titles selected for mention have a very strong British emphasis. Authors were only included if they are well-known (in Britain), in print, or seminal to a particular topic or genre. However, while most selections may be available in the UK, some may be much harder to track down elsewhere.
The remaining two-thirds of the book are small biographies of 1,000+ authors, with indications as to their key works, and three "similar" writers. For example, if you like Nick Hornby, try Roddy Doyle, Kingsly Amis, or J.D. Salinger. On the whole, an attractive, accessible book to dip into to get some ideas of new stuff to read, but hardly the last word on the topic.
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