» Curious Book Fans

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.¹ As Gregor Samsa awoke that morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.² The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs Shears’ house.³ Curiouser and curiouser!, cried Alice.⁴ ‘It’s today!’ said Piglet. ‘My favourite day,’ said Pooh.⁵

That was the day the Curious Book Fans site was born. We built a small room on the world wide web. The door is open for all readers who want to hear and talk about books. Welcome to our room full of books…

Most popular articles in 2011

An Idiot Abroad

1. An Idiot Abroad is written in diary style and for a guy who’s supposed to be stupid Karl is not a bad writer at all. That’s not to say that some of his opinions don’t make you cringe.

The Winning Way – Learnings from Sport for Managers

2. What does sport have in common with management? Quite a few things – most sports rely on teamwork and leadership and so does management.

The Land of Painted Caves by Jean M. Auel

3. When it was announced that this series would be drawing to a close with the publication of the sixth and final novel, The Land of Painted Caves, in March 2011, her fans felt a mixture of sadness and anticipation.

Daughters-in-law by Joanna Trollope

4. I don’t find many books unputdownable but that is how I felt about Daughters-in-Law. This is Joanne Trollope writing at her best, and if you have never read any of her novels, this would be a very good one to start with!

One Day By David Nicholls

5. One Day is a great book. Poignant, realistic and funny, I found I could totally relate to this story.

The New North

6. I suppose the question at the end of it all is: am I convinced by Smith’s argument? Well, let’s just say that I now think that learning Norwegian might not be a bad investment in your future.

Curious Book Fans talked to:

Essie Fox

Essie Fox: Oddly enough, when I first started to write I was planning on something contemporary. But every time I began, a character or some ‘item’ from the past would crop up and intrude on the novel’s plot

Sonia Faleiro

Sonia Faleiro: I met Leela through a source in what I call the ‘bar and brothel business’. She was 19 at the time, and one of the smartest young women I’d met anywhere. I immediately knew I wanted to write about her...

Patrick Bishop

Patrick Bishop: I am of the view that most Talibs are fighting for the same reasons that young men fight – for the excitement of it and to test themselves. In this respect they are not much different to their British and American opponents.

Abbas Kazerooni

Abbas Kazerooni: It is very mentally challenging for a child to deal with loneliness, boredom and the idea of knowing that there is no one that he can turn to for help with small and complex matters.

Christie Watson

Christie Watson: Everyone in Nigeria is interested in politics. You can’t buy a bottle of Coca-Cola without the shopkeeper selling talking about their political views on the Niger Delta.

Oliver Burkeman

Oliver Burkeman: The kitchen timer (I carry one everywhere I go!) is a great way to turn confusing, intimidating, unmanageable or boring tasks into doable ones.

Martin Pevsner

Martin Pevsner: I had a different name for the novel originally – Companions of the Garden – a reference to the Qur’an. An agent told me people browsing in a bookshop would presume it was a gardening book.

Deborah Harkness

Deborah Harkness: In some ways I’ve been reading and researching this book since around 1984 when I first took a course that explored the relationship between magic and science.

Farahad Zama

Farahad Zama: Yes, my wife’s uncle was our neighbour and that’s how the marriage was arranged. I met my wife for the first time in October and we were married on New Year’s eve, six weeks later.

Alex Marsh

Alex Marsh: I used up the best bits of my life in Sex and Bowls and Rock and Roll and don’t want to do a diminishing returns thing… but I have been floored by some of the nice things that people have said about this one.

Urmilla Deshpande

Urmilla Deshpande: The Kashmir in my book is no more real, I think, than is the Alexandria in Durrell’s quartet or the London that Sherlock Holmes lives in.

Sorayya Khan

Sorayya Khan: The inspiration for Five Queen’s Road is drawn from real events in my family’s history. Five Queen’s Road, in fact, was once the real address of my father’s parents’ home in Lahore ...