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Hi marca, Derby as in cheese and East London in South Africa [following].
Look across the boxed cells.

Only just noticed the 2nd "a" looks wrong.

Thanks Ginge, sorted it out just after I posted.... and the second a was indeed wrong. Now for the creator.

Good Morning. I have been beavering away at this most difficult of compilers and to my amazement, managed all but 6 clues. I have the title and therefore the Author but I am blowed if I can track down the other titles and I think I have also gone very wrong on the words removed and the correct letters because my instruction looks like gobble-de-gook. 8, 11 & 16a are defeating me so some heavy hints would be appreciated. Thank you.

Hi mm,
The instruction is (6,3,6,2,4,7). The other titles involve the 5 boxed/unchecked cells individually.
8 & 11 have an extra word and16 a missing letter

I no longer have the puzzle only my "workings" I can't remember if 16 indicated the answer was 2 words but I remember being surprised that 11 wasn't. I have 11 as (7,3) & 16 (3,5).

11Ac features a typical bit of EV sloppy editing. It IS two words, anagram of hoodygrab + t, extra word WILL.

Hi Manic Mary
My heavy hints are as follows
Title of the book (extra letters are in 1, 16, 23, 26, 29, 34, 37, 39, 41 Across and 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 24, 29 Down
The instruction is C????E O?E L????R IN F???E C?????S
When you do this (leaving real words) and write the surname of the author in the barred off cells reading L to R, you get the 5 titles reading top to bottom in those columns. Column 1 title starts in row 2 (3,7), Column 4 title starts in row 2 (6), Column 7 title starts in row 1 (9), Column 10 title starts in row 3 (10) and Column 13 title starts in row 2 (8) N.B The column 13 title is the ENGLISH version of the name of a title character.
16 Ac (3,6) Think Russian rather than German authors.
The instruction letters are calculated by adding the "score" of the missing word's initial letter to the "score" of the solution's initial letter.
e.g. 8Ac
missing word = black = 2
solution = Ace = 1
2+1 = 3 = C

Many thanks to all especially Turast and thank you for confirming the nationality of 16a. Had managed to finish the grid, including some groans re 11a. Still haven't managed to sort out the correct words for the 1st & 4th words of the instruction, will go back to the beginning.

If you've got the titles, MM, you've probably followed the instruction without knowing the exact terminology! The first word is reasonably obvious (as you've likely done it anyway!), the fourth word is very small.