Allen, Charlotte (62) Anderson, Catherine (94) Blake, Jennifer (66) Bradford, Barbara Taylor (66) Brown, Sandra (158) Cartland, Barbara (67) Child, Maureen (67) Collins, Jackie (60) Dailey, Janet (239) Deveraux, Jude (182) Dodd, Christina (69) Edwards, Cassie (67) Ericksen, Susan (121) Feather, Jane (62) Garlock, Dorothy (155) Garwood, Julie (95) George, Catherine (55) Gerritsen, Tess (50) Graham, Heather (96) Harlequin Romance Novels (130) Heyer, Georgette (97) Hill, Grace Livingston (132) Howard, Linda (137) Jackson, Lisa (50) Johnson, Susan (161) Johnston, Joan (62) Joyce, Brenda (50) Katherine (625) King, Susan (103) Kingsley (536) Krentz, Jayne Ann (210) Laurens, Stephanie (85) Lindsey, Johanna (131) Lowell, Elizabeth (164) MacOmber, Debbie (91) Martin, Kat (50) Mason, Connie (71) Michael, Judith (111) Michaels, Barbara (192) Michaels, Fern (199) Michaels, Kasey (59) Michaels, Leigh (69) Miller, Linda Lael (106) Neels, Betty (50) Oke, Janette (59) Palmer, Catherine (51) Palmer, Diana (78) Paul, Susan (165) Pella, Judith (52) Phillips, Susan Elizabeth (62) Putney, Mary Jo (52) Quinn, Julia (57) Roberts, Nora (545) Small, Bertrice (51) Smith, Deborah (88) Steel, Danielle (220).

Woman Fiction: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Romance Books: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Greene the 20th century writer

Greene Graham Greene wrote some of the most commanding English novels of the 20th century - "The Power and the Glory," "The Heart of the Matter," "The End of the Affair" and "The Quiet American" - and some of the slickest commercial thrillers. His political credo united him with victims and underdogs everywhere. Yet he saw fit to praise tyrannical regimes in the Soviet Union and Cuba.

As a schoolboy in Berkhamsted, England, Greene had to balance the demands of his classmates against those of his father, the headmaster. Continually subjected to the other boys´ taunts, he tutored himself in the ways of duplicity, in the rival claims of trust and betrayal. During World War II, Greene served as a British spy under Kim Philby, later unmasked as a double agent for the Soviets during the Cold War. Despite his friend´s betrayal of their country, Greene refused to breakoff their friendship. Greene was also a notorious womanizer, whose affairs and brothel visits where ever he travel to. Throughout Greene´s life and fiction, the theme of divided loyalties is a constant. And no wonder. The seeds were planted early.

On the anniversary of his birth, October 1904, the book world has been busy issuing new editions of his work, pondering his troubled personality and weighing his literary reputation.

Just how good a writer was Greene, who died in 1991, and what is his enduring legacy? Greene was extraordinarily prolific. Aside from serious novels, he wrote thrillers he called "entertainments," screenplays, plays, film criticism, essays, travel books, memoirs, even children´s books. In so vast a body of work, quality is bound to vary. Still, the judgment that Greene was a major figure in 20th century English literature seems largely beyond dispute. David Lodge, the English novelist and critic who has written an analysis of Greene´s work, believes his achievement is immense: He adapted the structure of adventure fiction, and other popular fictional genres, like the crime novel, to new and more serious literary purposes, especially in novels that dealt with specifically Catholic characters and themes.... He was a master of English prose, with a wonderful feeling for prose rhythm, and a fertile inventor of vivid metaphors and similes." The Nobel Prize eluded Greene, Lodge believes, only because of prejudices against authors so popular. By the late ´40s, his books began appearing regularly on bestseller lists.

A younger generation may have been introduced to Greene in recent years by high profile films based on his books. But moviegoers who thrilled to Michael Caine´s performance as a world-weary journalist in "The Quiet American" (2002) or Julianne Moore´s as a guilt-ridden adulterous wife in "The End of the Affair" (1999) don´t know the half of it.

Penelope Lively has a new book

Penelope Lively has a new book! "The Photograph," its book description says, "opens with a snapshot: a young woman, Kath, at an unknown gathering, hands clasped with a man not her husband, their backs to the camera. Its envelope is marked Do Not Open - Destroy. But Kath's husband, Glyn, (the landscape historian) does not heed the warning. The mystery of the photograph, and of Kath herself and her recent death, propels him on a journey of discovery that sends shock waves through the lives of her family and friends...".

Penelope Lively was born in Cairo, Egypt and spent her childhood there. She came to England at the age of twelve, in 1945, and went to boarding school in Sussex. She subsequently read Modern History at St. Anne's College, Oxford. In 1957 she married Jack Lively (who died in 1998). They had two children, Josephine and Adam. Jack Lively's academic career took the family from Swansea to Sussex and Oxford, and eventually to Warwick University, where he was Professor of Politics. Penelope Lively now has four grandchildren and lives in London.