Alive & Twitching

 Born in 1931, Tom Wolfe is a famous American journalist who did not publish his first novel until 1987. He is certainly not a prolific novelist, having to date only published three. All are, however, very long books. read more »

I first came across Jonathan Coe in 2005 when his novel, The Rotters’ Club, was serialized on the BBC. Having enjoyed the television adaptation so much, I turned to his novels of which I have now read six. read more »

John le Carré is the master of the spy novel, being able to draw upon his own experience in intelligence. It would, however, be quite wrong to classify him solely within that genre as he is rightly regarded as one of our greatest living novelists. read more »

William Boyd is a writer of considerable range who has won several awards. I am a big fan and have read all nine of his novels. The following seven are strongly recommended: read more »

For those of us who enjoy reading novels but were unable to indulge that pleasure to a large extent during our working lives, retirement provides a great opportunity of catching up with some of the books we wanted to read but didn’t get round to, as well as enjoying the best of contemporary fiction. read more »