Great swashbuckling: Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped

Allow Robert Louis Stevenson to give you a swashbuckling time in the Really Like This Book podcast scripts catch-up. Kidnapped (1886) is the classic romp through the heather by the master of the modern Scottish adventure, though it's set in 1746. Stevenson dragged the historical novel out of the rather long-winded grip of Sir Walter Scott, and made it immediate, exciting and … Continue reading Great swashbuckling: Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped →

Sir Arthur Quiller Couch and being Q

Today’s letter is Q in the Really Like This Book scripts catch-up, and today’s author was a struggle to find. Q is not a common initial capital letter for anglophone surnames, and whoever I chose was going to be obscure. In the end, after consultating the online Literary Encyclopaedia, I had a choice of the classical … Continue reading Sir Arthur Quiller Couch and being Q →

Jules Verne meets Conan Doyle with aliens: Philip José Farmer’s The Other Log of Phileas Fogg

The title is the second-best thing about The Other Log of Phileas Fogg. How can you resist the suggestion that Phileas Fogg kept an alternative log of his trip Around the World in Eighty Days? What else could have happened that the world didn’t know? The first best thing about the novel is the answer: … Continue reading Jules Verne meets Conan Doyle with aliens: Philip José Farmer’s The Other Log of Phileas Fogg →

Erskine Childers’ The Riddle of the Sands

The Riddle of the Sands was published in May 1903, and it has probably sold more than two million copies in its lifetime. Its author Erskine Childers was infuriated when it was described as fiction, because for him the issue of a probable German invasion by sea was real and the danger obvious. Many reviewers at … Continue reading Erskine Childers’ The Riddle of the Sands →