Novels

Five Fascinating Facts about Game of Thrones

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Quick facts about A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones

We felt it was high time we gathered together the five best facts we’ve uncovered about the HBO TV series Game of Thrones, and the books on which the series is based, George R. R. Martin’s fantasy cycle, A Song of Ice and Fire.

1. George R. R. Martin’s series A Song of Ice and Fire was inspired by the pet turtles he had as a child. Martin would invent stories involving the turtles … but, because the turtles kept dying, the young Martin imagined that they must be hatching ‘sinister plots’ to kill each other off. One wonders if there was a Joffrey turtle, a Littlefinger turtle, and a Cersei turtle!

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Guest Blog: Random Stuff I’ve Learned by Reading Too Many Novels – Professional Mourners

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By Debra Beilke Toloki is the main character in South African writer Zakes Mda’s first novel, Ways of Dying. Toloki comes from a small village, but lives in Johannesburg. He goes to a lot of funerals. This is not because he knows so many people who have died, but because he is a Professional Mourner. … Read more

Guest Blog: The Finest and the Third Worst – Aesthetics and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

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By Nicholas Joll The Hitchhiker books by Douglas Adams are interesting literature. At any rate, they are interesting books. One way in which they are interesting is this: they raise the question of what literature, and art in general, is in the first place. This short(ish), three-part essay uses Hitchhiker’s to consider such questions – … Read more

Guest Blog: Yuri Mamleev’s Shatuny, a Metaphysical Detective Story

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By Timofey Reshetov Yuri Mamleev’s literary works are available to the Western reader in numerous translations, his novels and short stories have been printed in French, German, Italian and other European languages. In English however there has only been a single book where several of his earlier short stories and parts of the Shatuny novel … Read more

NaNoWriMo: Classic Novels Written in a Month

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Which classic novels were all written within a month? And which writer would take all his clothes off as a way of coping with writer’s block? We’re here to inspire you in your writing quest whether you’re taking part in NaNoWriMo or merely trying to complete (nay, perhaps start) a writing project. This month, many people … Read more