Prepare to give a talk on an important library, its history and facilities

11. Group work. Work in groups of three or four to discuss the pros and cons of reading detective novels and thrillers. Consider the following:

"It has been estimated that only 3 percent of the popula­tion in Britain read such classics as Charles Dickens or Jane Austen; Agatha Christie's novels have sold more than 300 mil­lion copies."

(Longman Britain Explored)

"As thoughtful citizens we are hemmed in now by gigantic problems that appear as insoluble as they are menacing, so how pleasant it is to take an hour or two off to consider only the problem of the body that locked itself in its study and then used the telephone..."

(J.B. Priestley)

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

(W.Shakespeare)

"The world loves a spice of wickedness."

(H. Longfellow)

"If Jonathan Wild the Great had been written today, I think he would have been the hero of it, not the villain, and we should have been expected to feel sorry for him. For compas­sion is the order of the day...

Detective stories have helped to bring this about, and the convention that the murderee is always an unpleasant person, better out of the way."

(LP.Hartley)

"The crime novel is developing moral equivalency: un­pleasant detectives and charismatic criminals."

(The Guardian, Oct. 8 1997)

"If the question "Wither Fiction?" is raised, the novelist will have to make up his mind which side he is on. Is he to write: "She was a beautiful woman, witty, clever, cultivated, sympathetic, charming, but, alas, she was a murderess? Or is he to write: "She was a beautiful woman, witty, clever, etc., and to crown it all, was a murderess"?

(L.P. Hartley)