The Day of the Jackal, by Frederick Forsyth »

The Day of the Jackal, by master thriller writer Frederick Forsyth is a novel whose main character is the Jackal. The Jackal was a real terrorist, at the time extremely high profile and very terrifying and infamous.  Forsyth, of course writes fiction, and he takes the liberty of creating a fictional plot around this real [...]

World Without End, by Ken Follett »

This book is a follow-up on the enormously popular Pillars of the Earth. About the relationship between the two books, Follett says: ” Ever since The Pillars of the Earth was published in 1989, readers have been asking me to write a sequel. The book is so popular that I’ve been nervous about trying to [...]

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera »

Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being somehow makes me think of James Bond. “You only live twice” is the title of a James Bond movie. It is a title I am, for some reason or another, often reminded of. Partly, I guess, because even though living twice may be possible for Mr. Bond, it [...]