Cirrus@Austlit

''He writes like a prophet and he can satirise folly in high places with a touch as elegant as Oscar Wilde ...There isn't a word wasted' Daily Mail 'A well-balanced show of wit, intellect and glorious observation' Sunday Times 'No one wields a joke more punchily than he does. And the wide capacity for warmth towards all sorts of experience - from Billy Connolly to Primo Levi - is impressively exemplary in our culturally divided and divisive times' Observer 'Very funny ...breathtakingly good literary essays. Mr James is excellent on television - when he is on it, or reviewing it' Sunday Telegraph 'James's hilarity is often a powerful support for his argument, but as well as vintage Jamesian japery there are many excellent things in this collection' New Statesman & Society'  (Publication summary)