The Magus tells the story of Nicholas Urfe, a young Englishman who ends his relationship with an Australian woman, Alison, to take a job teaching in an English school on a Greek Island. In that idyllic setting he meets Conchis, a rich, mysterious, somewhat sinister figure who, with the help of several accomplices, leads him through an increasingly ( Read more... )

J. G. Farrell was a fine writer who accidentally drowned off the coast of Ireland in 1979 at the age of 44. The Singapore Grip is set in Singapore during the last months before Japanese forces took over the city in February, 1942. The story begins with Walter Blackett, the head of a large business empire, Blackett and Webb. He has little interest ( Read more... )

The Collector is yet another book that I've known about for years but never read until I signed up for 1001 Books. My loss. It is a fascinating, intriguing, suspenseful novel. It tells of a young man, Frederick Clegg, a clerk and a collector of butterflies, who becomes fascinated by a young woman, Miranda Grey, whom he has seen and watched--stalked ( Read more... )

In 1919 Major Brendan Archer returns to England from the trenches of WWI and goes to Ireland to meet the woman--Angela Spencer--to whom he may or may not be engaged. He does not recall a definite agreement to become engaged, but he met Angela briefly before being sent overseas and she has written to him regularly throughout the war, always signing ( Read more... )

De Sade is supposed to have written The 120 Days of Sodom in tiny handwriting on a single long roll of paper, while imprisoned in the Bastille. It tells of four men--"libertines," De Sade calls them--who abduct a group of young teenagers, 8 boys and 8 girls, whom they take to a remote castle in order to subject them to an ordeal of humiliation, ( Read more... )

( Sins of the Fathers: Absalom, Absalom!, by William Faulkner )

Title: Under the Skin
Author: Michel Faber
Published 2000
Length: 311 pages
Source: Bought used through Barnes & Noble

Isserley cruises the roads of the Scottish Highlands sizing up male hitchhikers. She is looking for beefy specimens with big muscles. She, herself, is tiny-like a kid peering up over the steering wheel-and wears the thickest ( Read more... )

Title: Stiller (English title: I'm Not Stiller)
Author: Max Frisch
First published: Suhrkamp-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1954
Edition I read: Suhrkamp-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1963
Page count: 518 pages

Summary (from Google books): The unabridged version of a haunting story of a man in prison. His wife, brother, and mistress recognize him and ( Read more... )

First published: 1985
Pages: 455 (First edition, Little Brown and Company)
Summary: Not from me, not for this book.
Since my tone and word choice can sometimes overwhelm my overall impression, I would like to start by stating that I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.
( Do not fear: All will NOT be revealed. )

(  The Rocky Road to London: Joseph Andrews, by Henry Fielding )