How to be Well Read

<p><b>'Generous, enjoyable and well informed.' <i>Observer</i></b><br><br><b><i>'</i>500 expertly potted plots and personal comments on a wide range of pop and proper prose fiction.' <i>The Times</i></b><br>___________________________________________________________<br>Ranging all the way from <i>Aaron's Rod</i> to <i>Zuleika Dobson</i>, via <i>The Devil Rides Out</i> and <i>Middlemarch</i>, literary connoisseur and sleuth John Sutherland offers his very personal guide to the most rewarding, most remarkable and, on occasion, most shamelessly enjoyable works of fiction ever written.<br><br>He brilliantly captures the flavour of each work and assesses its relative merits and demerits. He shows how it fits into a broader context and he offers endless snippets of intriguing information: did you know, for example, that the Nazis banned <i>Bambi</i> or that William Faulkner wrote <i>As I Lay Dying</i> on an upturned wheelbarrow; that Voltaire completed <i>Candide</i> in three days, or that Anna Sewell was paid £20 for <i>Black Beauty</i>? It is also effectively a history of the novel in 500 or so wittily informative, bite-sized pieces.<br><br>Encyclopaedic and entertaining by turns, this is a wonderful dip-in book, whose opinions will inform and on occasion, no doubt, infuriate.<br>__________________________________________________<br><b><br><i>'</i>Anyone hooked on fiction should be warned: this book will feed your addiction.' <i>Mail on Sunday</i></b><br><br><b>'A dazzling array of genres, periods, styles and tastes... chatty, insightful, unprejudiced (but not uncritical) and wise.' <i>Times Literary Supplement</i></b></p> <p><b>'Generous, enjoyable and well informed.' <i>Observer</i></b><br><br><b><i>'</i>500 expertly potted plots and personal comments on a wide range of pop and proper prose fiction.' <i>The Times</i></b><br>___________________________________________________________<br>Ranging all the way from <i>Aaron's Rod</i> to <i>Zuleika Dobson</i>, via <i>The Devil Rides Out</i> and <i>Middlemarch</i>, literary connoisseur and sleuth John Sutherland offers his very personal guide to the most rewarding, most remarkable and, on occasion, most shamelessly enjoyable works of fiction ever written.<br><br>He brilliantly captures the flavour of each work and assesses its relative merits and demerits. He shows how it fits into a broader context and he offers endless snippets of intriguing information: did you know, for example, that the Nazis banned <i>Bambi</i> or that William Faulkner wrote <i>As I Lay Dying</i> on an upturned wheelbarrow; that Voltaire completed <i>Candide</i> in three days, or that Anna Sewell was paid £20 for <i>Black Beauty</i>? It is also effectively a history of the novel in 500 or so wittily informative, bite-sized pieces.<br><br>Encyclopaedic and entertaining by turns, this is a wonderful dip-in book, whose opinions will inform and on occasion, no doubt, infuriate.<br>__________________________________________________<br><b><br><i>'</i>Anyone hooked on fiction should be warned: this book will feed your addiction.' <i>Mail on Sunday</i></b><br><br><b>'A dazzling array of genres, periods, styles and tastes... chatty, insightful, unprejudiced (but not uncritical) and wise.' <i>Times Literary Supplement</i></b></p>