Squeers,

Yes, I got the impression straight away that what the title suggested wasn't necessarily what McEwan was going to deliver....usually a book titled "Enduring Love" would send me running in the opposite direction : )

Since no one else has restricted themselves to just one – why should I?

I've always especially enjoyed science fiction/fantasy themes particularly when crafted into densely realistic alternative worlds and universes which somehow seem as familiar as they are strange and novel. Clive Barker leaves me weirded out but fascinated. Australian author Greg Egan's Permutation City allures with its promise of immortality in cyberspheres – reminiscent of OLO in some respects, but as a full spectrum three-dimensional 'reality'.

Should you have any time on your hands, try dipping into Peter F Hamilton's The Night's Dawn Trilogy, which begins with The Reality Dysfunction. Or, Samuel R. Delany's allegorically informed Neveryon series.

A more recent favourite – and proving cover quotes can sometimes be accurate – is Neal Stephenson's baroque trilogy; Quicksilver('This weird, wonderful collision of scholarship and storytelling has no peer' Time Out), The Confusion ('Massive in scope and littered with treasure… You'd better start reading now' Daily Telegraph), The System of the World ('A sumptuous, decadent feast for the brain' Irish Examiner.

It just occurred to me that each of those previous sets runs to about 3,000 pages and that Hamilton followed up with the Void Trilogy of similar heft – so probably not suggestions suitable whilst waiting at the bus stop, but useful if you're facing being banged up for twenty years, Poirot.

Squeers,

"Bring on the Empty Horses" is marvellous.

"Harpo Speaks", is also a great read, a rags to riches story, clowning all the way.

WmTrevor,

I wish I could join you in discussion about sci-fi, but I never got into it. My daughter is a huge fan of science fiction/fantasy and I know that sci-fi fans feel an affinity with and a passion for the genre.

Having said that, if I ever have another go at reading it, I'll make a note of your favourites.

(Just about to embark on a complete clean-out of our fish tank....by the look of its present state I could be entering a completely different dimension of reality - wish me luck : )

Your daughter sounds like an eminently intelligent person with exquisitely good taste, Poirot.

I've often thought that the world is divided into two types of people – the literati and those, the more highly attuned, I think of as the faster than lite-erati.

Should you decide to – as you say – have another go at it… ignore everything else and sample Quicksilver which I think is best described as historical speculative fiction.

Good luck with the fish tank. I hope it's not such a complete clean-out as you imply, since that would be very bad news for the fish.

mac,
I was more interested in Harpo's eccentric circle of friends, and the Algonquin club he was a memeber of, than I was in him. Same with Niven and his friends. I think I recall a moving tribute to Bogart among other things. I've always admired actors and performers. Not celebrity or the popular stardom of some actors, especially these days, but the consummate actor devoted to the craft, on stage and screen.

WmTrevor,
I was a fan of sci fi and fantasy for several years, but haven't read any for ages. I might have a go at one of your suggestions too.