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2025

  • Daphne du Maurier: The King's General
  • Deborah Lawrenson: The Secretary
  • Richard Cohen: How to Write like Tolstoy
  • Adrian Tinniswood: Noble Ambitions
  • Adrian Tinniswood: The Power and the Glory
  • Martin Williams: The King is Dead, Long Live the King
  • Gavin Plumley: A Home for all Seasons
  • Robert Harris: Precipice
  • Nigel Slater: A Thousand Feasts
  • Joan Aiken: Tales of London Town
  • Alan Connor: 188 Words for Rain
  • Ben Robinson: English Villages: An Extraordinary Journey through Time

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Cornflower book group

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Lyn

What a good idea! I always read the Introduction after reading the book but there's often interesting information about the author, their motivations, influences etc that would have been useful to know when reading the book. Very few Introductions (especially of the classics) don't give away the plot.

Cornflower

Glad you think it's a good idea, Lyn!

Dark Puss

I completely agree with you about conventional "introductions" (though most of the books I read don't have them) and like you if I read them at all it will be after I have read the novel. As to signposts, I have no objection to them adding a few more pages but I certainly won't be reading them. I really want to make my own journey, uninformed and partially sighted as it will undoubtably be, through the book. As you know, unlike yourself and perhaps 99% of Cornflower's readers, I am not particularly interested in the influences or motivation of the author. I apologise for not having had time to look at Lee's video; had I done so I might have made a more informed comment.

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