General Fiction – a miscellany

I appear to have only one book by the following authors:

Carlos Fuentes – Terra Nostra
Jean Genet – Our Lady of the Flowers
Hannah Green -I Never Promised You A Rose Garden
Doris Grumbach – The Missing Person

Actually I do have another Joseph Heller book somewhere, but of course Catch 22 is his most famous. It’s still a great read.

Then there are the two Irvings…

John Irving with his famous ‘Garp’ and Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Shirley Jackson’s books have been out of print for decades, but I am pleased to see that her best known books have recently been reprinted in Penguin. She is an extraordinary writer and her We Have Always Lived In The Castle is my favourite of hers and also one of my all time favourite novels. I gave it to my niece at Christmas and she loved it. Merricat Blackwood is one of the most compelling literary creations of all time. My battered old paperback edition is below.

The Haunting of Hill House is one of the scariest, most suspenseful novels I have ever read. There have been several film versions of this book, but nothing beats reading the original. The Lottery is a collection of her best stories. I remember, when I was a member of a small theatrical group back in the ‘60s we performed the play based on The Lottery – I was Tessa, the victim.

Next – Jack Kerouac