Scratching a living
John Gross’s The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters: English Literary Life since 1800, a standard text for…
Pessimism keeps breaking in
State-of-criticism overviews and assessments almost always strike a bleak note —the critical mind naturally angles towards pessimism — so it…
Tricks of the trade
The American comic novel is going through an odd phase. Just lately it seems like anything funny must sneak in…
Life as an outsider
The Emperor Waltz is long enough at 600 pages to be divided, in the old-fashioned way, into nine ‘books’. Each…
Gossip with a kind heart
J.K. Rowling’s second novel under the Robert Galbraith moniker is a whodunit set in the publishing industry. This isn’t a…
Smiles and grimaces
Readers familiar with Nicola Barker’s hyper-caffeinated style will be surprised by the almost serene first few chapters of her latest…
Cracking up
The troubles of Richard Pryor’s life are well known — from his childhood in a brothel to his self-immolation via…
The healing art
In calling their book Art as Therapy Alain de Botton and John Armstrong have taken the direct route. They’re not…
From brilliance to burn-out
Thick, sentimental and with a narrative bestriding four decades, Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings feels above all like a Victorian novel,…
Redemption with laughs
Harry Christmas, the central character of this bitterly funny debut novel, is a middle- aged, overweight alcoholic, with no friends…
