Any books you are glad not to have written?

My immediate thought was autobiographies - the chap (John something) who was held hostage for four years by terrorists (John McCarthy?) and had to share a room with Terry Waite, who was inevitably urging him to take comfort in his faith, pretty glad also I didn't write Geri Haliwell's autobiography. The only proper one I can think of is "Catcher in the Rye" - a book which made everything else the author ever wrote a disappointment, which is held up to be a masterpiece while at the same time slated as just being a book admired by moody teenagers, and which turned him into a recluse for nigh-on forty years, which was held responsible for the death of John Lennon. All that, and nobody in the world knows the author's first name. (Cue some smart-alec now to tell me it is Jonty) Salinger is welcome to that as a legacy.

I think his first name's Jerome. There's a very good book called The Search for JD Salinger (or something roughly like that) by Ian Hamilton which is probably more interesting than Mr Salinger's books, although I like them too. I'm glad I didn't write one of the many books that miraculously turned out to be a classic about 25 years after the author died, as an anonymous lunatic.

Jerome David, son of a cheese importer too. I would hate to have written any book by David Icke. Purple never suited me. Apart from that, writing a book - any book - about the royals would make me hang my head in shame.

There was that faux-controversial book a few years back written from the POV of a child-molester and sympathetic to the narrator. Pretty glad I didn't write that.

Andrew - fair points about Salinger, although a lot of his shorter stuff's very good too. As for being responsible for Lennon's death, I read a thing once about Chapman's reasons for doing it and they were all pretty tenuous - especially The Catcher in the Rye links. The guy was a fruit cake and probably would have done it anyway. Anyway, I wish I'd written (or had the ability to write) The Catcher in the Rye as it had a massive effect on the way I read fiction, and, as well as being "literary", was no doubt a nice little earner. As for books I'm glad I didn't write, anything by Jilly Cooper/Jackie Collins et al. I simply couldn't live with myself.

I'm glad I didn't write Catch 22 - similar reason to Catcher In The Rye. Poor Heller hasn't been able to live up to the standards of popularity and prestige he inadvertently set himself with that book. Also, Dr. Zhivago, We, Slaughterhouse 5, Hope Against Hope...and all the books that can only have emerged from horrific and scarring personal experiences, or resulted in exile for their writers.

The Primo Levi book - I don't think there's any tradeoff worth having to have had the experiences that made that book possible. Julian - I actually quite like Franny and Zooey, but nothing else Jonty's written comes close. And no, I don't think the book was culpable but it certainly got cited as being bound up in the delusional world Chapman thought he was in. (Is it "Let me take you down" ? the Chapman book? Very interesting book. How many times he got close enough to do it and walked away. )

Franny and Zooey were pretty good - I prefer Franny though as it's a bit of a trial to keep reading Zooey at times. I've got a copy of his Nine Stories that is brilliant in parts - I think it's popularly published as "For Esme with Love and squalor" now. The one about Bananafish, Teddy and the title story are all class. Catch-22's a good one, that totally messed Heller up - but I wonder if I'd be happy writing a lot of pretty decent stuff or just one thing that's perceived as perfect - as Catcher and Catch are by some?

The Talented Mr Ripley, by Patricia Highsmith. It's a great book, and no one quite has her take on the world, except maybe Muriel Gray. But, if wrote this book, I just know that eager journo's everywhere would draw endless comparisons between Tom Ripley and myself. Think Dickens and David Copperfield. In this, I mean a little bit of an outsider, a watcher, not an amoral head case.

Actually, am now wishing I put Tom Ripley down as the fictional character most like myself. Damn. Book far more interesting than the film, the film just goes for simplistic homoerotic love story, whereas my take on the book is that Tom is in love with the idea of Dickie, rather than Dickie himself.

I agree: the film does tend towards falling back on the old cliche of the outsider with 'deviant'sexual desires who is a threat to the straight world, the sexual 'norm.' I still love the film, however, because there are so few adult themed films about anymore. As one journo recently stated about films made in the 70's, that was an era when movies were not trying to be your best friend. And I can't find enough ajectives to employ when you get me onto the soundtrack. Wow! Brilliant, cool,sweeping,sexy... I agree that Tom is in love with the idea of Dickie, rather than Dickie himself. In the film, Dickie's death arises from a blind rage born of provocation. In the book, Tom makes a concious decision to kill Dickie, to become him. I thought I might be putting my good name on the line, linking it to Tom Ripley. It's nice to see that someone agrees with my choice. Have you read Ripley Underground, Andrew?

On DVD, the director's commentary is the best I've heard, he thought so carefully about such small details that build up a picture - and the casting was first-class. The whole time Freddie is on screen I'm hissing "kill him Tom, kill him right now" and likewise for Marge. I actually liked the film a hell of a lot, but the book is just so much better than anything else around, I've never felt so tense reading a story before.

you cant hiss that andrew.. there is no s in it *refers andrew to cliche busters thread*

Refers Liana to his own reference in that thread to P G Wodehouse. I was there, and it was hissed. (Am taking a stylistic battering in the forums tonight, first Chant attacking my metaphors and now you criticising my non-use of sibilants. )

yes but it was YOU that said that PG was the only one who could get away with it, wasnt it?

Some of the rubbish that's been in the Booker list over the past few years. Especially books that run to over 2000 pages. I mean is there a point to writing huge amounts of stuff like that? Baffled. iceman