The NYTimes Sunday books section recently had an interview with actress Emma Thompson about what she's reading. But what caught my attention were the books that she included among her childhood favorities, like "The Wolves of Willoughby Chase." Since that's also a favorite of mine, her list inspi...
Stand and deliver…"A rat was like a snail beside Smith, and the most his thousand victims ever got of him was the powerful whiff of his passing and a cold draught in their dexterously emptied pockets."Smith is a twelve-year old pickpocket surviving by his wits in the London of the 18th century. B...
Leon Garfield is a very good writer.I am particularly impressed by his use of repetition. He knows how to repeat words to make them funny, moving, serious and more. I can't think of any writer who can use repetition with such keenness and finesse.Each of the three stories had words that were repe...
He rode a white horse out of darkling woods across wide, spangled fields. And, as he jogged along, his horse’s harness jingled cheerfully (which may or may not have been the clinking of the leg-irons in the compartment aft). Then he was in a trim, fair garden where sunshine and the cypresses play...