He flailed about, he said, making false starts at novels.

Cary worked at various novels and a play, but nothing sold, and the family soon had to take in tenants.

I look at 19th-century novels and it seems people were in better touch then than they are now.

I had to think about that and very consciously look at novels I admired and see how they did different things.

Yet his passion for the written page doesn't stop at novels.

In Love and Freindship, she laughed at popular sentimental novels.

I threw out all my false starts at stories and novels.

"If you look at the newspapers or novels from the beginning of the century, they all show it."

After two failed attempts at novels, Pessl began writing a third in 2001 about the relationship between a daughter and her controlling, charismatic father.

His works consist of adventure stories aimed at teenagers as well as adult novels.