Spectre of trilogies

[Ghazala]

Pat Barker, author of the Regeneration trilogies told the Cheltenham Literature Festival that from here on its just one-off novels for her. Im too old, Barker, 72, said. I cant have a dog and I cant have a trilogy. She finds that the worst thing about trilogies is people who read the books in the wrong order and complain to her that their enjoyment of the earlier ones was spoilt by knowing what happens. This was particularly the case with Regeneration, since it was the third volume, The Ghost Road, that many started with after it won the Booker Prize.

[Dai Bach y Sowldiwr]

Totally agree.

Trilogies should be banned.

Plots should be in six parts, like Star Wars.

[Steven Broomfield]

Dance to the Music of Time, anyone?

[Uncle George]

Or, 'A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight'.

[J T Gray]

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

Adrian

[Steven Broomfield]

Having never read (and never intending to read) Ms Barker's works I am at a loss to say anything meaningful, but that's never stopped me before.

The Spanish Farm trilogy (R H Mottram) is one that I enjoyed (attempting, possibly in a futile fashion, to keep this anchored in the GW) when I read it some years ago.

Also, of course, The Barchester Chronicles take some beating for a fine series of novels, as does my current evening commute read, The Forsyte Saga

[gem22]

In 2001 I purchased Hew Strachan's 'The First World War' Volume 1: To Arms. I'm still waiting for volume 2 to be published never mind volume 3!

Garth

[Steven Broomfield]

Shall I spoil it for you and tell you the ending?

[Old Tom]

John Master wrote a fine trilogy about a fictional regiment of infantry and the families of its members covering a period from a year before to a few years after the Great War. I have read it three times in total and not always in serial order. I started with a paperback volume off a second hand stall and found the others on other stalls over the next few years.

Old Tom