Christopher Booker writes for the Sunday Telegraph and is the bestselling author of The Seven Basic Plots, The Real Global Warming Disaster, The Great Deception and Scared to Death (all published by Bloomsbury Continuum). He has been an author and journalist for nearly 50 years, and was the founding editor of the satirical magazine Private Eye.
Number 5 in Foyles bookshop Top Ten
Number 5 in Foyles bookshop Top Ten
Number 5 in Foyles bookshop Top Ten
"....remarkable parallels between the structure of the modern film
Jaws and that of the Old English Beowulf." Writing Magazine
"If you have any interest in fiction and the way it works, you will
enjoy this exploration of the seven basic plots and how they have
been adapted and developed across the centuries." Writing
Magazine
Mentioned in article about author in The Lady, 17/07/07
*The Lady*
"This magisterial volume really does offer readers a genuinely
fresh and exciting perspective on virtually every tale ever told."
--Bookmark, July 2005
*Bookmark*
"Fantastically entertaining" The Times
mention in Evangelical Times, 1 May 2009
Excerpts included in Gotham Writer's Workshop monthly e-newsletter
for screenwriters.
http://www.writingclasses.com/mailing.php?id=2419
'This book...has mind-expanding properties. Not only for anyone
interested in literature, but also for those fascinated by wider
questions of how human beings organise their societies and explain
the outside world to their inmost selves, it is fascinating.'
Katherine Sale, FT
*Blurb from reviewer*
'Christopher Booker's mammoth account of plot types, archetypes,
their role in literary history and where Western culture has gone
horribly wrong.' Times Literary Supplement
*Blurb from reviewer*
'His prose is a model of clarity, and his lively enthusiamsm for
fictions of every description is infectious...The Seven Basic Plots
is...one of the most diverting works on storytelling I've ever
encountered.' Dennis Dutton, The Washington Post
*Blurb from reviewer*
'This is the most extraordinary, exhilarating book. It always
seemed to me that 'the story' was God's way of giving meaning to
crude creation. Booker now interprets the mind of God, and analyses
not just the novel - which will never to me be quite the same again
- but puts the narrative of contemporary human affairs into a new
perspective. If it took its author a lifetime to write, one can
only feel gratitude that he did it.' Fay Weldon, novelist
*Blurb from reviewer*
'An enormous piece of work...nothing less than the story of all
stories. And an extraordinary tale it is ... Booker ranges over
vast tracts of literature, drawing together the plots of everything
from Beowulf to Bond, from Sophocles to soap opera, from Homer to
Homer Simpson, to show the underlying parallels in stories from
what appear to be the most disparate sources. If stories are about
"what happens next", this book sets out to show that the answer is
always "the same things", then to explain why. I found it
absolutely fascinating.' Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye
*Blurb from reviewer*
'This is literally an incomparable book, because there is nothing
to compare it with. It goes to the heart of man's cultural
evolution through the stories we have told since storytelling
began. It illuminates our nature, our beliefs and our collective
emotions by shining a bright light on them from a completely new
angle. Original, profound, fascinating - and on top of it all, a
really good read.' Sir Antony Jay, co-author of Yes, Minister
*Blurb from reviewer*
'I have been quite bowled over by Christopher Booker's new book. It
is so well planned with an excellent beginning and the contrasts
and comparisons throughout are highly entertaining as well as
informative and most original - and always extremely readable.'
John Bayley
*Blurb from reviewer*
'Booker's knowledge and understanding of imaginative literature is
unrivalled, his essays on the great authors both illuminating and
stimulating. This is a truly important book, an accolade often
bestowed and rarely deserved in our modern age.' Dame Beryl
Bainbridge
*Blurb from reviewer*
Title mention in article
*Books for Keep*
'some splendid links between story and reality...enjoyably
provocative'
*Morning Star, The*
'It's hard not to admire the commitment of any writer whose book
has taken 34 years to evolve. And there can be no doubting that
Christopher Booker's 700-page, exhaustive examination of "Why we
tell stories" - the book's subtitle - is a labour of love.'
*Morning Star, The*
"one of the most brilliant books of recent years"
*Times*
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