Great Writers: Guy de Maupassant

A short-story occasionally appears on the horizon that redefines the world and jars it into focus and  Boule De Suife is one of them.  For any writer seeking to master the short story there is no better beginning to the instruction of this most difficult of forms than this collection. Guy de Maupassant's classic opening story (also entitled 'Boule de Suif') takes a knife to French society and ruthlessly peels away its many layers....

Great Books: Dune by Frank Herbert

I read Dune when I was twelve and I revisit it continually as its lessons remain as potent today. Dune has a brooding quality that erodes limits and barriers and emphasises certain realities and hints at greater depths and mysteries.  There is a sense of timelessness to this classic eco-religio-political piece of science fiction that defies interpretation and continues to tantalise. Yet Dune was turned down by twenty or so publishers before...