Books : Fiction : Contemporary Fiction: 1970 Onwards : Authors A-Z : G

Notes from an Exhibition

Patrick Gale
Sea of Poppies

Amitav Ghosh
The Beach House

Jane Green
T is for Trespass

Sue Grafton
Neverwhere: The Author's Preferred Text

Neil Gaiman
The Life and Soul of the Party

Mike Gayle
Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy

Jostein Gaarder
AQA Psychology A AS: Student's Book (Aqa As Level): Student's Book (Aqa As Level)

Jane Willson, Rosie McGinley, Julia Willerton, Simon Green, James Bailey
Stardust

Neil Gaiman

There is a way into Faerie, beyond the fields we know, and it lies in a village called Wall, somewhere in the early Victorian era. Every nine years there is a fair on the other side of the wall, where Faerie sells its wares to the mundane. Farmer Duncan Thorne had his moment of mad love with a witch's bondservant; Tristan, his son, turned up in a basket nine months later. Now Tristan is old enough to fall in love, and promises Victoria a falling star... This is a fairy story in the tradition of George MacDonald and Hope Mirlees; a book of passion and terror and wit which reminds us that Faerie is not a safe place, or a fair one. And at its edges there lurk other stories--Neil Gaiman's work in comics and television has previously shown his capacity to evoke mystery and glorious magic by telling us just enough and no more, but he excels himself here. Charles Vess's illustrations, (Vess collaborated with Gaiman on key episodes of The Sandman), have charm and occasionally more--the stars dance, Pan looms from the forest, a witch queen rides a chariot driven by goats and Tristan journeys by candlelight leagues at a step. --Roz Kaveney
T Is for Trespass

Sue Grafton
Good Omens

Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett
Rough Music

Patrick Gale
Cross Stitch (Outlander, US)

Diana Gabaldon
Second Chance

Jane Green
Dragonfly in Amber

Diana Gabaldon
Voyager

Diana Gabaldon
The Glass Palace

Amitav Ghosh

Beginning in 1885, with the British invasion of Mandalay and the capture of the Burmese king and queen, and encompassing over 100 years to modern-day India and Burma (Myanmar), Amitav Ghosh has created in The Glass Palace a monument to life in colonial central and Southeast Asia. The story follows three generations from three families, spreading its wings across the world, from Malaya to New York. Yet despite the epic scale, the gentle and intimate detail of the characters and their interwoven relationships removes any need for an understanding of this area of the world in geographical or historical terms. The map at the back of the book is useful for following the characters' travels as their fortunes and rulers (British, Japanese, military government) change, but it is the atmosphere and feel of the era and location that Ghosh captures astutely. Each city or border is not a mark on a map with political significance but a home, a memory and a reality.
With each generation the characters' lives and personalities contrast and intertwine according to the rise and fall of the countries'--and the world's--politics. Rajkumar, the Indian peasant who makes a fortune through teak and his wife Dolly, the breathtakingly beautiful maid of the Burmese royal family, contrast to Uma the Indian widow who becomes a champion for Indian independence after her liberating time in the USA and the Americanised Matthew who makes a life in his half-native Malaya as a rubber plantation owner, while Uma's Bengali nieces and nephew contrast to Rajkumar and Dolly's newly wealthy sons. Yet they all suffer in the Second World War, whether as a soldier, refugee or evacuee discriminated against because of their skin colour. Ghosh's focus on the war in Burma, from the viewpoint of Indian officers in the British army, who have been imbued through their regimental history to believe in their allegiance to "their" country (i.e. Britain and not India), reveals a side of both world wars that is rarely told. The struggle these British subjects experience, as to whether colonial or fascist masters are better, is not something that shaped the general European knowledge of the Second World War, where "good" and "evil" seemed much clearer.
However, The Glass Palace is not only about war; and the full circle it travels, from one glass palace in the lush and rich 19th-century Burma to another glass palace in repressed and impoverished Myanmar is, seemingly with ease from the lush and rich prose, satisfying and informative. It is a novel in which the characters will always go on living, and whose ideals will never die. --Olivia Dickinson
Read Write Inc.: Set 1: Speed Sound Cards

Gill Munton
Drums of Autumn

Diana Gabaldon
Dr Faustus based on the A text (New Mermaids)

Christopher Marlowe