Amis, best known for his novels (e.g., London Fields, The Information), recognizes an authorial foible, then pounces on it not without grace, not without vigour. His evaluations are lively and scholarly. Requiring less literary background are his essays on poker or chess, Elvis Presley, or the sexual allure of Margaret Thatcher. The Amis view is at its best or at least at its most readable when he discussing such standards as Don Quixote, Pride and Prejudice, Ulysses, and Lolita. His lengthy commentary on Nabokov, Larkin, and Updike certainly informs, as do shorter pieces on Roth, Burroughs, Capote, Burgess, and Vidal. To paraphrase Vidal, the best writing allows the reader to participate. Without question, Amis appreciates this concept and puts it into practice in his most accomplished criticisms.

Amis's reactions are so fun to read, largely because of his brilliant humour. One thing he does better than anyone I have read is control his tone. People this smart tend to show off their intellectual abilities, especially when making fun, but Amis has tact and a good sense for subtlety. He never runs his mouth for no good reason, but when he does have reason what he writes can leave you feeling glad he is not criticising your work. His ability to write about everything, and people who think they can write about everything, makes this such an enjoyable collection. "War Against Cliche" is full of wonderful observations and I am constantly in awe of Amis's ability to cohere the fragments and come up with an argument where others, such as myself, would be left groping for something vague. This collection asks us not only what is literature? but what is literary criticism? and in doing so makes a defense of wit and talent. ( )

Opinionated, biting criticism. Well worth reading whether you agree with his judgements or not.

The foreword warns the reader to watch the datelines: "You hope to get more relaxed and confident over time; and you should certainly get (or seem to get) kinder, simply by avoiding the stuff you are unlikely to warm to. Enjoying being insulting is a youthful corruption of power. You lose the taste for it when you realize how hard people try, how much they mind, and how long they remember[.]" The acidity of the critical critical responses is wonderful fun, from a safe distance ("The Green Movement needs a holy book. So does Viking Penguin. So do I. So do we all. Our need survives The End of Nature, in which Bill McKibben fails to fulfil the rolling prophecies of his publicity kit.") but given the illustrious names he tears into and the span of 29 years the reviews cover, I can easily imagine some hindsight reservations here and there.

It's the detail of Amis's response, and the evidence he insists on providing, in quote after quote after quote, that makes these pieces so very succesful as reviews. I'm adding a great many books to my wishlist, not because he recommends them but because reading his reviews I'm confident that I know enough to decide for myself that I will enjoy them.

Even when he's unimpressed, Amis has a response -- sometimes quietly hilarious in its animosity, sometimes more forgiving and plainly informative. The best of these reviews are worth attention both as analysis and as (anti)recommendation, and also simply as plain-spoken and extremely vigorous prose. ( )

Amis is a really terrific book reviewer; acid about any error, able to pinpoint a book's strengths, well versed in the historical. Highlights here include his ability to explain J.G. Ballard and Elmore Leonard's talents, the panning of Hannibal and dissection of a middling humor anthology, an enthusiastic endorsement of Underworld that's still online. The only weak essay is his attempt to explain Jane Austen's appeal-he quotes some passages, doesn't really make any claims about how we get involved with it--but for me, this was a tremendous disappointment. Pride and Prejudice is apparently the book that got him into literature, but it was also the one book in high school I couldn't bring myself to finish, and I was hoping this gap could be bridged to some extent. ( )