BigWords

I have the feeling that I would probably clear my TBR pile and start working through the Doc Savage series from the beginning (including novellas and short stories), then - if I'm still alive at the end of that - I would probably begin on The Shadow series. When I get bad news I tend to gravitate towards reading matter which I know I like, and the formula of the pulps is very comforting. There something about the classic structure employed in the writing which almost hypnotizes me into continuing with the characters.

Aside from Dream of the Red Chamber and On the Three Representations I have bought all the single entries at one point or another - I'm surprised Journey To The West didn't make it onto the list, though that may be yet another Wikipedia oversight. In the series list I have bought most of the titles in the Perry Mason series, a few Star Wars books, Bond; I've picked up a few of the Mr. Men and Little Miss series for my niece (making sure to note that I didn't buy them for myself here). Never picked up Berenstain Bears. It occurs to me that making note of the largest selling titles is extremely problematic, and many authors are confused about just how many copies of their own books have been sold, so something like this list must be taken with a pinch of salt.

Porterhouse Blue has this in part, as well as The Wheel Of Time series (several times, if I remember correctly), though it is less prevalent a device than older man / younger woman storylines.

Welcome to the BCF. You'll love it here.

A moment of silence, while I state what is probably going to be a shocking revelation, for even me - I like novelizations of movies. Don't mistake that for an admiration of all novelizations, as not everything can be as intelligent as the Alan Dean Foster Alien books, nor as valiant an attempt at keeping the timeline as straight as Garry Douglas managed with the Highlander novelization. I know there is a certain hesitancy to regard them alongside "proper" novels, and I appreciate the discomfort that some people have with them being mentioned alongside the "real" authors. A great many of the people who have done novelizations have also done excellent original work, and the opportunity to see how they handle other people's characters is something of a guilty treat for me.

I cried when reading The Da Vinci Code. I realized there was another sixty pages to go and nearly broke down... Oh, wait. You mean a novel which affected me emotionally? That would have to be Watership Down. Every. Single. Time.

You weren't annoyed with the end of the novel? There are better works in the Christie canon. I'm more impressed with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, due to the sheer audacity of the entire premise. Also, with And Then There Were None, you have to skirt around the troublesome early titles the novel was published under...