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Lord of the Files
Graham Lord has published nineteen books, among them seven biographies, two autobiographies, nine novels, two novellas, a dozen short stories, scores of essays, hundreds of book reviews, and thousands of newspaper and magazine columns and articles.
Here from his files are eighty of the best of them, ranging from a vividly touching description of his childhood bungalow home in Mozambique in the 1940s, his report of a British by-election at Newbury in 1993, and his admiration for the astonishingly multi-talented Cecil Lewis, whom he calls ‘the last great Englishman,’ to his musings about rude book reviews, writing a diary, sleazy women novelists, the British Book Awards and the Frankfurt Book Fair.
He writes irresistibly of his worldwide travels: stalking impala at night in the Kruger Game Reserve, nearly drowning white-water rafting in the French Alps, cruising from Bermuda to Boston, catching the fabulously luxurious Eastern and Oriental Express at midnight from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok, staying at ‘the best hotel in the world,’ and revelling in exotic trips to Java, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and the Great Barrier Reef.
And he describes with deep affection the tiny, idyllic West Indian island where he and his wife, Juliet, a highly talented painter, now spend their winters.
Graham Lord was born and educated in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), raised in Mozambique, took an honours degree in History at Cambridge, and spent twenty-three years as Literary Editor of the Sunday Express in London, where he wrote a weekly column about books and met almost every major English language author of the 1960s to the 1990s.
After leaving the Sunday Express in 1992 to become a full-time author he wrote regularly for The Daily Telegraph, The Times and the Daily Mail, and from 1994 to 1996 he edited the short story magazine Raconteur.
Printed book size: 482 pages
Here from his files are eighty of the best of them, ranging from a vividly touching description of his childhood bungalow home in Mozambique in the 1940s, his report of a British by-election at Newbury in 1993, and his admiration for the astonishingly multi-talented Cecil Lewis, whom he calls ‘the last great Englishman,’ to his musings about rude book reviews, writing a diary, sleazy women novelists, the British Book Awards and the Frankfurt Book Fair.
He writes irresistibly of his worldwide travels: stalking impala at night in the Kruger Game Reserve, nearly drowning white-water rafting in the French Alps, cruising from Bermuda to Boston, catching the fabulously luxurious Eastern and Oriental Express at midnight from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok, staying at ‘the best hotel in the world,’ and revelling in exotic trips to Java, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and the Great Barrier Reef.
And he describes with deep affection the tiny, idyllic West Indian island where he and his wife, Juliet, a highly talented painter, now spend their winters.
Graham Lord was born and educated in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), raised in Mozambique, took an honours degree in History at Cambridge, and spent twenty-three years as Literary Editor of the Sunday Express in London, where he wrote a weekly column about books and met almost every major English language author of the 1960s to the 1990s.
After leaving the Sunday Express in 1992 to become a full-time author he wrote regularly for The Daily Telegraph, The Times and the Daily Mail, and from 1994 to 1996 he edited the short story magazine Raconteur.
Printed book size: 482 pages
- GenresSchool
506 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 10, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 11, 2022
The book, Lord of the Files is a story in the 1950's with three British boys named Ralph Jack and Piggy. The boys are around the same age group with Piggy and Ralph being thirteen year's old and jack being a little older. The story takes place on a island in the Pacific Ocean. The three boys arrive on this island by a plane crashing. Piggy is the clever, fat and wears big glasses. Ralph on the other hand is the skinny athletic boy in the group. Jack is the crazy selfish believes he can accomplish anything he want's. Conflict's between Jack and Ralph happen many times in the books. The main conflict's of event's being that who is going to be the leader of the group. They both have different ways of living or Ideology on the island. Where Ralph represents a police officer where he wants to serve and protect the law with no corruption. While on the other hand Jack is the criminal where he want's violence and corruption. Later on in the story another conflict happens where Jack leaves Ralph's group to start his own. Piggy then also leaves Ralph's group to join up with Jack. Jack's group act's as the hunter's who show selfish and being tyrants. This group later on hunts Ralph. I rate this book four out of five because it shows what people can do when there stuck on a deserted small island. It shows out the true nature of one and another and what people would do to be at the top.
February 14, 2018
I think this was a good book because it can be a life lesson and you can learn from it, just in case you are ever in a problem like this.
October 2, 2021
I personally really like this book, it was actually of the first book I got to read in the very beginning of my freshman year. At first, my first impression to this book without reading it was that it's simply just a non-fiction book with a bunch of boys getting trapped in an island. But after getting a more in-depth reading of this book, I realize the real theme was humanity, where it not just happen out in the society but also happens in a group of boys with an average age of 12 . A concrete connection within real life is the social life in school is somehow on the line of similar with what's happening with the boys stuck in the island. The authors uses the eye of 12 years old boys to demonstrates the idea of the evils and selfishness in humanity no matter ones age, is truly magnificent. I would one hundred percent recommend this book to those that's interest in human nature or psychology but does not enjoy reading boring facts. Lord of the Files truly dives in into human nature within different characters, and within each characters really represents a personality traits out in the real world.
November 18, 2025
This book was really boring and I had no clue what was happening. There were some parts that was good but there wasn’t many. I would recommend this to people who love detail in books.
February 5, 2024
My overall rating for this novel is 4 stars. While this novel does include a thriving story some parts of the story can be overwhelming for the reader.
The plot in the Lord of the Files starts off very strong by introducing the main characters in an interesting matter. And the way the author utilizes illusion throughout the story leaves us readers speechless at times. But at other times when the author utilizes illusions it makes us readers confused about what is happening in the story. Furthermore, in the plot, we see tons of foreshadowing with our main characters during their journey to survive this island they have suddenly gotten stranded on. So make sure when you are reading this novel you keep track of the details, even if the characters just mention it once.
The protagonist in this novel Ralph carries the story by being such a relatable character to readers when he is faced with challenges on the island. Another character that really supported the story was Piggy, yes Piggy is the name of a character in the story. He demonstrates such intelligence and order in the story and, thus, has the biggest heart out of all the characters. Seeing both these characters as a duo similar to Batman and Robin was so epic to see and was the only reason I stayed interested.
The plot in the Lord of the Files starts off very strong by introducing the main characters in an interesting matter. And the way the author utilizes illusion throughout the story leaves us readers speechless at times. But at other times when the author utilizes illusions it makes us readers confused about what is happening in the story. Furthermore, in the plot, we see tons of foreshadowing with our main characters during their journey to survive this island they have suddenly gotten stranded on. So make sure when you are reading this novel you keep track of the details, even if the characters just mention it once.
The protagonist in this novel Ralph carries the story by being such a relatable character to readers when he is faced with challenges on the island. Another character that really supported the story was Piggy, yes Piggy is the name of a character in the story. He demonstrates such intelligence and order in the story and, thus, has the biggest heart out of all the characters. Seeing both these characters as a duo similar to Batman and Robin was so epic to see and was the only reason I stayed interested.
July 17, 2015
I found the plot and characters too unbelievable to really enjoy this book. The choppy, juvenile voice is also kind of annoying.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews