Fascinating Facts About Famous Fiction Authors and the Greatest Novels of All Time: The Book Lover's Guide to Literary Trivia

This has been great. So many favourite books – Jane Austen, Daphne du Maurier, PD James, DH Lawrence, Graham Greene, George Orwell, F Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway - this goes on and on! Fabulous – especially those from the UK, but not all of them, of course. Quite a few are new for me and I guess I need to read some of these! Lots of little trivia tidbits - interesting, informative and fun.I recommend this book to lovers of literature.

Who knew that novelist Fanny Burney underwent a mastectomy, at a time before anaesthetic was discovered? Who even knew that mastectomies existed in the early nineteenth-century? Who knew that Vladimir Nabokov had Ruth Bader Ginsberg as a student when he was teaching at Cornell? Or that Marie-Henri Beyle used more than two hundred pen names, of which Stendhal is one? Dave Astor, that’s who, in his Fascinating Facts About Famous Fiction Authors And The Greatest Novels Of All Time.It’s an intriguing little text, in which the author puts a humorous slant on the anecdotes contained therein, giving due credit to subscribers of his website for providing some of them. It’s not necessarily a book for reading all in one go, in my opinion—although I did—but more for dipping in and out of to find little nuggets of interesting information about a host of authors you know—and probably some you’ve never heard of.I’m not too proud to include myself in the latter category, but now that I’ve heard of them they’re on my wish list—along with some authors I know of but had never got around to reading. If—like me—you’re keen to experience some of the best writing around, I can recommend this handy little mine of literary information.

His descriptive way of introducing the famous authors, most of whom I've read over time, come back to life. Thus so in a way that nudges one to read them again or look to find the ones you'd not gotten around to read back then. Save of course Mordecai Richler, my one street over neighbour, growing up way back then. Also Edgar Alan Poe, poems and short stories, Faulkner, Hemingway, London and l’ll stop right now, because they were all great. Simply put, Dave Astor's "Fascinating Facts" is nothing less than a treasure, for any serious reader and aspiring ones who want to discover memorable reading!

My Cousin who is an avid reader found this book fascinating

I love the little insights into the lives of writers I admire and this book does just that. I like how it's written so I can pick it up and read in small chunks when time allows it.