Author Topic: Author! Author!  (Read 360770 times)

Gumtree

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1600 on: February 26, 2011, 11:26:31 AM »


Welcome to Author! Author!  

This is a game in which the contestants match their wits with a  challenger, who suggests a character in literature, non- fiction or fiction. The challenger may or may not provide more clues, his prerogative,, and never more than one a day.


Once a day the challenger will say if the guesses are correct or not. The winning contestant gets lots of acclaim and the chance to pose the next challenge. If he does not want to post a new challenge he can say so and whoever does can begin a new game.

Of course you could look these up on google in an instant, what challenge is that? The  idea is to rack one's brain to try to remember where this particular character appeared and who wrote about him/ her. Should be great fun.

The challenger also has the option not to mention the name of the character, but only a description.


Authors used so far:

Author, Book, Character, Challenger, Post#, winner

Anonymous, Beowulf, Beowulf, PatH, #1301
Atwood, Margaret, The Blind Assassin, Gumtree, #277
Austen, Jane, Pride and Prejudice, Mary Bennett, #158
Baum, L. Frank, The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy, JoanK, #342
Bennett, Alan, Uncommon Reader, Queen Elizabeth II, rosemarykaye, #1605, pedln
Blackmore, Richard, Lorna Doone, Lorna Doone, Frybabe, #462
Bronte, Emily, Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff, Gumtree, #252
Buchan, John, 39 steps, Richard Hannay, PatH, #396
Burns, Olive, Cold Sassy Tree, pedln, #1594, rosemarykaye
Carroll, Louis, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Alice, JoanK, # 426
Cervantes, Don Quijote, Don Quijote, PatH, #701
Christie, Agatha, Hastings, JoanK, # 127
Christie, Agatha, Death on the Nile, Hercule Poirot, JoanK, #752
Clancy, Tom, Hunt for Red October, Frybabe, #553
Coetzee, J. M., Disgrace, David Little, Straudetwo, #1336
Collins, Wilkie, The Moonstone, Rachel Verinder, PatH, #311
Conrad, Joseph, Heart of Darkness, Marlow, Gumtree, #226
Conroy, Pat, The Great Santini, Conroy's father, JudeS #1319
Cronin, A. J., The Citadel, Andrew Manson, JudeS, #1085
Davies, Robertson, The Cunning Man, Jonathan Hullah,  straudetwo, #1382
Dostoevsky, Fyodor, Crime and Punishment, Roskolnikov, JudeS, #1209, 1213
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, Study in Scarlet, Dr. Watson, PatH, #380
Dumas, Alexandre pere, The Three Musketeers, D'Artagnan, PatH, #939, 941
Eliot, George, Daniel Deronda, Gumtree, #190
Eliot, T. S., Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, Bustopher Jones, PatH, #110
Essex, Karen, Leonardo's Swans, Isabella d'Este, Mippy, #591
Faulkner, William, The Sound and the Fury, Caddy, 1429, 1439, Frybabe
Galsworthy, John, The Forsyte Saga, Irene, PatH, #615,620
George, Elizabeth, Lynley and Havers, Tomereader1, #168
Gilbert, W. S., The Savoy Operas, Frederick, or the Pirate King, #1108, 1111, 1112
Goodman, Carol, The Night Villa, the slave girl, Gumtree, # 1165
Greene, Graham, The Third Man, Holly Martins, PatH, ##1175, 1179
Grey, Zane, Riders of the Purple Sage, Frybabe, #294, 299
Henry, O. Mammon and the Archer, Anthony Rockwall, Ginny  #537
James, Henry, Washington Square, straudetwo, #981, 982
James, Henry, Wings of a Dove, Kidsal, #83
Keller, Helen, The Story of my Life, Anne Sullivan, JoanK #958
Lagerlof, Selma, The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, Nils Holgersson, JudeS #899
Lamb, Charles and Mary, Tales From Shakespeare, Macbeth, JoanK, #1301
LeFanu, Sheridan, Carmilla, roshanarose, #769
Maupin, Armistead, Tales of the City, rosemarykaye, #1553, pedln
McCourt, Frank, Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt, JoanK, #1062
Melville, Herman, Moby-Dick, the whale, PatH, #482
Miller,Arthur, Death of a Salesman, Gumtree, #1005, 1006
Milton, John, Paradise Lost, Frybabe, #413
Mitford, Nancy, roshanarose, #839, 840
Murdoch, Iris, The Sea, the Sea, Charles Arrowby, straudetwo, #1197, 1198
Nabokov, Vladimir, Lolita, Lolita, JudeS, #1124
O’Brian, Patrick, Master and Commander, Jack Aubrey, JudeS, #319
Orwell, George, Frybabe, #97
Pearl, Matthew, The Dante Club, pedln, #1629, deems 2
Peterson, Roger Tory, Field guide to the Eastern Birds, Mockingbird, JoanK #202
Potter, Beatrix, Jemima Puddleduck, rosemarykaye, #1478 pedln, #1482 deems2
Plutarch, ----, Themistocles, roshanarose, #1025, 1027
Preston, Douglas, Dinosaurs in the attic, Frybabe, #1456 rosemarykaye
Rand, Ayn, We the Living, Frybabe, #498, 502
Rowling, J. K, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Harry, PatH, #1409
Rhys, Jean, Wide Sargasso Sea, Jane Eyre, straudetwo, #1230
Scott, Sir Walter, Ivanhoe, Ginny, #602
Sewall, Anna, Black Beauty, Frybabe, #1490, Gumtree
Shelley, Mary, Frankenstein, the monster, PatH, #451
Smith, Alexander McCall, Mma Ramotswe, JudeS, #145
Smith, Alexander McCall, 44Scotland Street, Cyril, rosemarykaye, #1238, 1243
Spark, Muriel, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Miss Brodie, Gumtree, #671, 672
Steinbeck , John, Journal of a Novel, Gumtree, #53, 60
Stoker, Bram, Dracula, Jonathan Harker, JudeS, #631, 632
Stone, Irving, Depths of Glory, Camille Pisarro, Gumtree, #802
Tolkien, J. R. R., Lord of the Rings, Frodo, PatH, #238, 241
Tolstoy, Leo, War and Peace, Pierre Bezukhov, PatH, #1267
Trollope, Joanna, The Best of Friends, Sophie, Mippy, #218
Tyler, Anne, Digging to America, Maryam Yazdan,Mippy, #735
Vreeland, Susan, The Forest Lover, Emily Carr, Mippy, #364
Weir, Alison, Innocent Traitor, Lady Jane Gray, roshanrose, #883
Wethers, Beck, Left for Dead, Ginny, #29
Windsor, Kathleen, Forever Amber, Amber, Traude, #927, 928
Wodehouse, P. G., Bertie Wooster, PatH, #1046, 1048
Woolf, Virginia, Flush, Gumtree, #1511, 1513, rosemarykaye
Woolf, Virginia, Orlando, Orlando, PatH, #1141
Xenophon, Frybabe, #173
Zola, Emile, Germinal, Etienne Lentier, Gumtree, #1352


Only the latest heading is up to date.




























Quite a number of writers were born in Yorkshire - a novella? - life changing experience? - WOW - I'd better wait for some more clues...
Reading is an art and the reader an artist. Holbrook Jackson

rosemarykaye

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1601 on: February 27, 2011, 03:24:07 AM »
Here they are:

Author:      Has also written for stage and screen, and has performed as well

Book:         Is fiction, but is set mainly in a very real location

Character:  Is associated with a certain breed of dogs, who appear in the book

rosemarykaye

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1602 on: February 28, 2011, 05:31:39 PM »
And here's some more:

Author:       has written celebrated monologues that have been televised

Book:          is set in London

Character:   has a somewhat troublesome family

rosemarykaye

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1603 on: March 02, 2011, 01:53:08 AM »
Sorry, been a bit busy - here are some more clues

Author:       Wrote a successful play based on something that happened in his own front drive over a period of years

Book:          Shows some of the (fictional) inner workings of a very famous London landmark (though they are not the        main subject)

Character:  Is a close relative of someone who is very topical at the moment

Gumtree

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1604 on: March 02, 2011, 02:24:16 AM »
Intriguing clues - but I'm still in the dark.
Reading is an art and the reader an artist. Holbrook Jackson

pedln

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1605 on: March 02, 2011, 10:32:54 AM »
The author's a "he" and the character is probably a relative of King George VI.

Is it Alan Bennett, and the book Uncommon Reader?

And the character is Queen Elizabeth.

Gumtree

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1606 on: March 02, 2011, 10:40:31 AM »
Pedln - I think maybe you're a genius. The clues certainly fit.
Reading is an art and the reader an artist. Holbrook Jackson

pedln

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1607 on: March 02, 2011, 11:26:52 AM »
Not a genius, Gumtree.  As we used to tell the Quiz Bowl Team, if you only know ONE thing, make that your answer.  There aren't many British authors at my fingertips.

PatH

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1608 on: March 02, 2011, 12:05:38 PM »
No, I think you're a genius, Pedln.  That's got to be it--it fits perfectly.  Now I'm looking at all the clues and thinking why didn't I see it.  We had a very good discussion of it a while back--very funny book.

rosemarykaye

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1609 on: March 02, 2011, 12:21:40 PM »
Hello Pedln and Gumtree (faithful followers both...) - yes, Pedln, you are the WINNER!!!

It is indeed Alan Bennet, who was born in Leeds, and who wrote the play "The Lady In The Van" about the elderly woman who parked her van in his drive in London and stayed there for many years.  He also wrote "Talking Heads", a series of monologues.  I love his work, especially his diaries.  I also liked The History Boys.

I see you have already done the book, so I don't need to say much about it!  It is set mainly in Buckingham Palace, and the dogs are the royal corgis.

The Queen has a life changing experience when she discovers the mobile library parked in the palace courtyard.  The King's Speech is about her father, George VI.  And as we all know, HRH has had plenty of trouble with her offspring.

Over to you Pedln!  And thanks for sticking with it.

Rosemary


PatH

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1610 on: March 02, 2011, 02:36:26 PM »
I never heard of The Lady in the Van, but a lifetime ago I saw Bennett and friends (Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, and Johnathan Miller) in Beyond the Fringe--extremely funny.

pedln

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1611 on: March 02, 2011, 04:59:59 PM »
The Uncommon Reader is a delightful book, and the only Alan Bennett that I've read.  Enjoyed the movie The History Boys.  Netflix has Beyond the Fringe, but while it gets high marks for content, it fails the technical aspects.  I'm glad to hear about these other Bennett works.  I hope my library has them.

Bennett and Reader were a good choice, Rosemary.


pedln

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1612 on: March 02, 2011, 05:37:10 PM »
Here we go.  Someone is going to get this right off  the bat; no other clues will be necessaary

Author:  I was educated in New England
Book:  Historical fiction, set in New England
Character:  No specific characters, there are many, based on real persons


PatH

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1613 on: March 02, 2011, 05:44:19 PM »
Rosemary, I agree with pedln; that was a great quiz.  However, pedln, I don't seem to be getting this quiz "right off the bat".

straudetwo

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1614 on: March 02, 2011, 08:04:37 PM »
I agree.

Gumtree

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1615 on: March 03, 2011, 02:27:49 AM »
No - it sounds right outside my limited literary orbit.
Reading is an art and the reader an artist. Holbrook Jackson

rosemarykaye

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1616 on: March 03, 2011, 05:44:23 AM »
Pedln, this is a link to Alan Bennett's "Untold Stories", which is a great book IMHO

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Untold-Stories-Alan-Bennett/dp/0571228313/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1299148904&sr=1-1

and one to Amazon (uk)'s page about him:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Alan-Bennett/e/B001H6O0IY/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1

No idea about your clues so far!  Will keep trying!

Rosemary

roshanarose

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1617 on: March 03, 2011, 10:36:08 AM »
Rosemary - Congrats on a great quiz. Your stretch our mental capacity and then enhance it.Well done!

Gum - Sorry, but I really have to disagree about your "limited literary orbit".   ;)
How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?  - Plato

pedln

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1618 on: March 03, 2011, 10:42:31 AM »
Thanks for the Alan Bennett update, Rosemary.

It's a little early, but here's another Author clue, since no got it off the bat.  I'm sure this will start bells ringing.


Author:  I was educated in New England
             I wrote this book between my undergraduate and graduate years

JoanK

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1619 on: March 03, 2011, 03:47:27 PM »
iF gum has a "limited literary orbit", then I'm circling around on one spot.

Still no lights dawning!

rosemarykaye

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1620 on: March 03, 2011, 04:17:43 PM »
Yes, I fear I have spectacularly failed to launch so far   :)

pedln

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1621 on: March 03, 2011, 06:03:38 PM »
You know this.  I know you know it.  Here’s another book clue.


Author:  I was educated in New England
              I wrote this book between my undergraduate and graduate years

Book:  Historical fiction, set in New England
            This book follows events described in another, much, much earlier  book

Character:  No specific characters, there are many, based on real persons


PatH

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1622 on: March 03, 2011, 08:37:20 PM »
I know we're going to be mad at ourselves when someone finally gets it, but so far no inkling.

deems 2

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1623 on: March 03, 2011, 10:42:41 PM »
How about The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane?  (I wonder if anyone other than me has read that book.)

PatH

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1624 on: March 03, 2011, 11:05:51 PM »
I haven't read it, but it's on my TBR list.  It fits, as far as I know.

pedln

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1625 on: March 03, 2011, 11:27:12 PM »
Sorry, it's not The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane.  Hmm. I remember someone suggesting that a while back.

There will be another clue tomorrow.

rosemarykaye

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1626 on: March 04, 2011, 01:22:51 AM »
Is it anything to do with Henry James?

Gumtree

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1627 on: March 04, 2011, 01:43:23 AM »
'Limited literary orbit'

It's true you know - I may have read a fair amount of stuff but only in limited areas - there are huge gaps I can never hope to close. I don't read much mystery, thrillers, horror, sci-fi, fantasy, political history, and and and...  ... I've read a lot of the English writers but not so many American apart from the greats - and likewise with other nationalities BUT  I'd take a bet that I've read more Australian literature than most readers here  :D ... even there I have serious oversights.
Reading is an art and the reader an artist. Holbrook Jackson

pedln

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1628 on: March 04, 2011, 10:02:55 AM »
No, sorry, not Henry James

But isn't it amazing how much we all learn from each others "limited literary orbits."  Who recommended Deliverance Dane?  I think it was a friend of the author, not sure.

Time for another Character clue --

Author:  I was educated in New England
              I wrote this book between my undergraduate and graduate years

Book:  Historical fiction, set in New England
           This book follows events described in another, much much earlier  book

Character:  No specific characters, there are many, based on real persons
                  Most of the characters are helping a colleague with an important project.

deems 2

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1629 on: March 04, 2011, 10:31:38 AM »
Maybe The Dante Club?

pedln

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1630 on: March 04, 2011, 11:25:04 AM »
WINNER!!    WINNER!!   WINNER!!

Hurrah for deems2.  I'll bet it's sitting on your bookshelf someplace.

This would have been the last clue -- I have a Facebook page.  An age indicator.

Matthew is such a sweetie, and has given us so much time.  Good for you, deems2

rosemarykaye

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1631 on: March 04, 2011, 02:29:26 PM »
Well done Deems!  Sorry to be dim, but who is Matthew?

PatH

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1632 on: March 04, 2011, 04:23:57 PM »
Matthew Pearl is the author of The Dante Club and The Last Dickens, both of which we discussed here.  I wasn't in Dante, but in Dickens, he participated copiously, giving us all sorts of interesting details about where he got his ideas, what parts of the plot really happened, background,etc.

Goodness, pedln, that was an ingenious one.  Though I haven't read it, I know enough about the book that I should have gotten it, but I wasn't thinking of a contemporary author.  Good job, deems 2.

pedln

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1633 on: March 04, 2011, 05:32:05 PM »
Rosemary, he wrote The Dante Club when he was something like 22 or 23.  He also won some prestigious award from the Dante Society, and he is a lawyer -- Harvard or Yale, not sure which.  I don't know if he's practicing or is mostly writing.

He also wrote The Poe Shadow, which probably wasn't as well received as his other two novels, but all were discussed here on this site, and he participated in all of the discussions, especially, as PatH says, copiously in The Last Dickens.

He's just a really nice person.

As for The Dante Club, one of my all-time favorites, folks like Oliver Wendell Holmes, Robert Lowell and others are helping Longfellow translate The Inferno from Italian into English.  Along the way, they realize a connection with the horrendous murders that are occuring in the Boston area.

roshanarose

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1634 on: March 05, 2011, 09:44:57 AM »
Well done deems 2.  I had no idea.
How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?  - Plato

roshanarose

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1635 on: March 05, 2011, 09:34:33 PM »
Gumtree - I note that you said you had read a lot of books by Australians.  Although Bryce Courtenay is originally from South Africa he has been in Australia long enough to be regarded as an Australian author, I guess.

The strange thing is is that I have never had any desire to read any of his books.  I suppose I should try at least one and give him a chance, but my reading life is much too short, and my instinct tells me that I wouldn't like him anyway.  Have you read him?

 
How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?  - Plato

deems 2

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1636 on: March 05, 2011, 10:13:35 PM »
Gumtree - Which Australian authors would you recommend?

Sorry for the delay.   I am trying to think of a book.  Back soon with a new quiz.

Gumtree

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1637 on: March 06, 2011, 11:50:37 AM »
Roshanarose: No, I didn't say I'd read a lot of books by Aussies but I've certainly read some and I just was guessing that I've read more than most of our friends here have.  :D

Bryce Courtenay - spare me from him. He was so hyped up by the publishers and his oen self-promotion when Power of One came out that DH bought me hardback first edition thinking I'd be delighted - I was hard pressed to read it through and have never opened one of his efforts since. IMO he is very commercially driven and his writing shows it -  he is very popular but as you say, 'life is too short'  - I still regard him as a South African.

Deems 2 I always hesitate to 'recommend' an author as I find reading is such a personal occupation and so much depends on what type of reading you're after.
 If you want a quintessential colonial Australian classic novel try Henry Handel Richardson's The Fortunes of Richard Mahony or the more harrowing Marcus Clarke For the Term of His Natural Life

Here's a few of today's crop - Thomas Kenneally Peter Carey, David Malouf, Geraldine Brooks, Kate Grenville, Elizabeth Jolley, Thea Astley, Murray Bail, Robert Dessaix, Michelle de Kretzer, Drusilla Modjeska, Tim Winton, Shirley Hazzard, Helen Garner, Richard Flanagan, Marcus Zusak.

Older writers: Christina Stead, Miles Franklin, Eleanor Dark, Xavier Herbert, D'arcy Niland, Morris West, Randolph Stow, George Johnston, Neville Shute, Coral Lansbury (Angela's cousin), Kylie Tennant.

There's always our Nobel prizewinner, Patrick White - and another South African now naturalised Aussie and Nobel winner, J.M. Coetzee.

I suppose I'd better mention Colleen McCullough - one I love to hate.

Then we have Clive James, Germaine Greer and and and...

 Most of those mentioned are fundamentally novelists. Have you read many of them?
Reading is an art and the reader an artist. Holbrook Jackson

rosemarykaye

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1638 on: March 06, 2011, 12:01:13 PM »
I'm ashamed to say that the only one I have read is Clive James.  What a great list you have given us!

roshanarose

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Re: Author! Author!
« Reply #1639 on: March 06, 2011, 10:27:40 PM »
Gumtree - Yes.  An excellent list of some of Australia's finest.  Makes me pink with pride, it really does.
How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?  - Plato