About the Author

JAMES WOOD is a British-born literary critic, essayist, and novelist. He is Professor of the Practice of Literary Criticism at Harvard University and a staff writer at the New Yorker magazine.

Reviews

"[These] conversational essays [are] as illuminating in their quiet sophistication as they are revealing about Wood himself."-- "Newsweek"

"[Wood's] head is the vessel in which the treasures of literature are gathered to be protected from time. But the treasury Wood guards is not merely aesthetic: books are safety-deposit boxes for human affection, like urns that contain words not ashes."-- "The Guardian"

"Rich in verbal artistry . . . [Wood] provides virtuoso displays of eloquence and insight."-- "Publishers Weekly"

Offering characteristically sensitive readings of Penelope Fitzgerald, Chekhov, De Quincey and others, Wood's latest book also features grand pronouncements about literature of the kind that have provoked accusations that he is old-fashioned. In this case, however, he presents a more vulnerable, approachable version of himself by including details about his own life, as a boy in England and as a father living in Boston.-- "New York Times Book Review"