Maggie Dana

Not reading a prologue is a slap in the face to the author. If you pick up the book, bring it home, and plan to read it, then ignoring stuff the author's written is not only short-changing the author and his/her book, it's short-changing yourself. But this hatred of prologues isn't just confined to this one guy; some agents and editors don't like them either and they insist on them being changed to 'chapter 1' which is why you don't see as many prologues (in fiction) now compared to, say, 20 to 30 years ago.

Hello Avid Reader, and welcome. This is a great site. I joined only a few days ago and am happily collecting recommendations left and right. I checked reviews on The Amenable Woman and it does sound fascinating. I enjoy this sort of fiction when a real historical person (and their story) is woven into a modern narrative. Kind of like The 19th Wife that I just finished. I loved the book, but was a little let down by the ending of the contemporary story.

This is fabulous. I'm going to have an impressive list by the time I land with my empty suitcase, but I shall have to make sure there's a bit of room left for Marks & Spencers loot that I can't get over here. I believe M&S tried opening a shop somewhere in the U.S. but it didn't fly. Probably got run out of town by an American retailer. Michelle, I checked out some of Linda Gillard's titles. They look like the sort of books I enjoy. I found a Kate Atkinson at my library and started it last night. Another good read. Thank you for these, and please keep them coming.

My rudeness was in saying the premise of this thread was a bit presumptuous. It probably wouldn't have been so bad coming from a long-time forum member, but from a newbie, it was a bit OTT. Anyway, thanks for not tossing me overboard.

I apologise for coming on so strong. I've just re-read my post and it really is a bit rude. I'm sorry. I hate being/sounding rude, but I certainly did here. Again, my apologies, and please don't kick me out of the sandbox. It's way too much fun in here and I'm meeting such lovely people.

As a kid, I literally devoured Enid Blyton's books, especially The Fives and Mallory Towers. I was so jealous of "Bill" having her horse, Thunder, at school with her I tried to con my parents into sending me off to boarding school along with my pony. Then, as a young woman, I moved to the States and was disappointed to discover that Enid Blyton has never been published over here. So when my daughter was of an age to read her books, I had relatives send them over. This was in the days before (WAY before) the Amazon. And now my daughter has kids of her own and they're devouring The Fives, the Adventure series, and Mallory Towers because I keep buying them from Amazon.co.uk.

I just joined the forum and am looking forward to getting to know other readers who enjoy women's fiction. I'm English but have lived in the U.S. since dinosaurs roamed the earth. My favourite authors are (gasp ) English, namely Joanna Trollope and Elizabeth Buchan, though I also love books by Jodi Picoult and Elizabeth Berg, among many others. This June, I'll be flying home with an empty suitcase and plan to fill it with books to bring back. While Trollope and Buchan are published in the U.S., many wonderful U.K. authors of women's fiction are not. If any of you have recommendations for U.K. authors whose novels are similar to Trollope, Buchan, etc., I'd love to hear about them. I particularly enjoy novels that feature older women, say in their late 40s and 50s, who're strong and spunky and who tackle life head on. (FYI: Maeve Binchy, Katie Fforde, Marian Keyes, Rosamund Pilcher are all published in the U.S., so I already know about them). In return, I'm glad to list some U.S. women's fiction authors whose books have been published in the U.K. but who might not be very well known. Here are a couple of my favourites: Jeanne Ray, author of JULIE AND ROMEO (among others) Carrie Kabak, author of COVER THE BUTTER Julie and Romeo is a romantic comedy about a pair of 60-somethings who've been rivals (both personal and professional) for years until they meet at a business seminar and find out they have more in common than their antagonism. The book gave me many laugh-out-loud moments. Cover the Butter, written by an Englishwoman who lives in Kansas City, Missouri, follows an English teen into middle-age as she tries to cope with a love-hate relationship with her domineering mother, a loveless marriage, while trying to please everyone but herself. Set in England, this novel is beautifully written and hard to put down.

Drive you nuts? That's pretty much guaranteed.

Believe me, you don't want him here. He has absolutely no sense of irony ... or humor, either. He gets ragged, mercilessly, especially by a Brit writer who hangs out there and who is bloody brilliant with words, yet he never seems to glom onto the fact he's having the Mickey taken.

This is, I think, the only Bryson book I've not yet read. If it's half as good as his others, I have a treat in store. Thanks, Janet, for the review.

Obama's Audacity of Hope is beautifully written and filled with inspiration without being preachy. It's also filled with common sense and is a joy to read.

This thread is a great way to entice readers into books they might not normally pick up. I'm madly adding to my wish list, here.

I'll have to ask, that is when I'm not skipping every third chapter but only on alternate Tuesdays.

I must've grown out of it because I've not done anything ... it sort of happened. Several friends of mine can't read in the car and I feel sorry for them. Last summer, I went with my elder son and his tribe, down to Washington, D.C., an eight-hour drive. We left in the wee hours, but as soon as it got light, I was either reading or quilting. My grandchildren had their noses buried in books, too. And two years ago we all flew to Seattle. My oldest granddaughter, then 14, took 9 books with her and bought 3 more while out there. Her knapsack weighed a ton. Michelle, is it just cars? Can you read on a plane?

All these responses (and I agree with them 100%) reinforce your love of books and commitment to reading. This guy, the Prologue Basher, writes YA (not yet published), and claims to be a very slow reader. Nobody else on the board (all writers) agreed with him about not reading prologues. And I don't think he does this to get attention; he's too much of a black-and-white sort of fellow for that. But ... and it's a very big BUT ... there are some agents and editors out there who feel their readers dislike prologues, and authors are often encouraged to either incorporate the prologue into the first chapter, or rename the prologue as chapter 1 and renumber subsequent chapters. I feel this is a short-sighted attitude, but when you're trying to find an agent (you can't get published in fiction with a big publisher without an agent), you have to pay attention to their preferences. They are, sadly, today's gatekeepers when it comes to what you'll find in your bookshop. At least, that's the current situation in the U.S. publishing industry.

Hello and welcome, Tardis. I lived in Chalfont St. Peter a long time ago. Am now 3,000 miles further west in Connecticut. On my last visit home, my cousin took me for a drink at a pub in Little Missenden. How far is that from you?

Welcome from another newbie. I'm waving at you from across the Atlantic. Whoopee! I just learned a new skill. How to use smilies.

Exactly! And to counter that particular argument, the reluctant prologue reader from the other forum said, 'Then it should've been called chapter 1.' I suppose it's the word "prologue" that puts him off. Must remember to ask if he refuses to read epilogues as well.

Bookworm, yes, if you're going to dive into Jodi Picoult's books, then My Sister's Keeper is the place to start. I feel it's her best by far, and I've loved most of them. The only two that didn't sit right with me were TheTenth Circle and 19 Minutes. If I'd read either one of those two before any of her others, I probably wouldn't have read any more. The Tenth Circle is, I believe, the author's favourite.

The thread on whether you read introductions reminded me of a lively argument on another forum about reading prologues. One of the forum members stated, quite emphatically, that he never read prologues. Ever. Being as how this was a writers' forum, he got thoroughly jumped upon. Authors don't want to hear a reader has skipped an important part of their story. The guy's answer was that if it was an important part of the story, it should've been called Chapter 1, and then he'd have read it. But being called 'prologue' signified to him that it wasn't important enough to bother with. And he's a writer, to boot. It caused quite an uproar. So, now I'm wondering what a group of dedicated readers think about prologues. I always read them, but get a little annoyed if they go on for more than, say, four or five pages. A short prologue, a page or two, is often the only way to open some novels, whereas something labeled 'chapter 1' just wouldn't feel quite right at that particular point. And I get more than a little annoyed when aforementioned prologue is set in italics. Talk about hard to read. Opinions, anyone?

Roxi, you're an author's dream reviewer because you really care about POV, tense, sentence structure ... the nuts and bolts that most authors put a lot of work into but that readers don't usually notice unless they're messed up. The way you describe how you approach and structure your reviews is a real eye-opener. I wonder if people who don't write reviews understand how much thought and work goes into them, at least, into the sorts of reviews that you write. I write fiction, but have not, until now, seriously pondered the amount of effort that goes into a well-thought-out review. You've certainly opened my eyes. ps: I'm seriously in awe of people who're able to describe clearly and succinctly, what they like/don't like about a book. It's one thing to say you didn't like something; quite another to explain why.

Favourite war-related non-fiction: Franklin and Winston, an up-close-and-personal look at two of the three world leaders during WWII. Fiction: Piece of Cake by Derek Robinson, along with his WWI trilogy, Goshawk Squadron, War Story, and Hornet's Sting which now lists for $100+ on several used-book sites. Makes me wonder why Robinson's publisher doesn't cash in and reissue the book, a gritty and realistic story about a fictional British squadron based in France during the Great War. Robinson's flying and battle scenes are gripping and enlightening, and the paradoxes of war are reminiscent of Catch-22. I first read Piece of Cake twenty years ago. I read it again recently and found I enjoyed it as much, or even more, than I did the first time. That's often a worry when you remember loving a book, then finding you've outgrown it when you read it again many years later.

As a kid, I got car-sick. My mother tried everything, including tying something to the back bumper that dragged on the road to having me sit on brown paper (??). I just Googled and found this: "You are reading a book in a car. Your inner ear and skin receptors are telling your brain that you are moving. Your eyes see only the stationary book, and tell your brain that you are not moving. These bits of information don't go together, and the result is the discomfort that you feel and call car sickness." By the way, I'm no longer car-sick ... can read or knit with no problem. My only relapse occurred when map-reading at night during a car rally. The driver was slinging the car around corners on two wheels, and that, plus the flickering map-reading light, did me in. I wound up feeling wretched in the back seat while our relief driver/navigator took over and proceeded to get us thoroughly lost.

My favorite bookmark was given me by a co-worker almost 30 years ago ... a Garfield the Cat bookmark with a red tassel. It only goes in books I really, really love. Those I'm ho-hum about don't merit my special bookmark which is now creased and dog-eared and more than a little bit faded.

The first time I heard the name Cacciamani I was five years old. My father said it, and then he spit. Julie and Romeo by Jeanne Ray