This book collects fifty of Christopher Ricks' reviews from newspapers and journals on both sides of the Atlantic--TLS, London Review of Books, The New Statesman, The Sunday Times (London), The New Republic, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Book Review, and others--to several of which he has been a regular contributor. The book's five sections range around the twentieth century, addressing major figures in biography (Ackroyd, Edel, Ellmann, Mailer), poetry and fiction (Heaney, Hemingway, Milosz, Naipaul, ...
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This book collects fifty of Christopher Ricks' reviews from newspapers and journals on both sides of the Atlantic--TLS, London Review of Books, The New Statesman, The Sunday Times (London), The New Republic, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Book Review, and others--to several of which he has been a regular contributor. The book's five sections range around the twentieth century, addressing major figures in biography (Ackroyd, Edel, Ellmann, Mailer), poetry and fiction (Heaney, Hemingway, Milosz, Naipaul, Pound), literary criticism and theory (Davie, Empson, Fiedler, Fish, Leavis, Sartre), sociology and cultural studies (Goffman, Milgram, Steiner), and various non-literary arts (the Beatles, Steinberg, Coppola, Kubrick, Wiseman). The questions at the heart of Ricks' work as reviewer have always been essential ones: What can we learn from this book? How good and how pleasing is it? How might it have been better? Radiantly intelligent, learned, witty, and rigorously attentive to how words are used and to the arguments they are used to make, Christopher Ricks is for many the best critic now writing in English. "Reading Professor Ricks' comments and observations convinces me that he is exactly the kind of critic every poet dreams of finding." -W.H. Auden "Like perfect goodness or perfect disinterestedness, the perfect review is an impossible ideal. Of all the people I know, Christopher Ricks has come the closest to achieving it." -Wendy Lesser, Los Angeles Times Book Review
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Seller's Description:
Collectible-Good in Collectible-Good jacket. Signed by author Christopher Ricks on the title page. First edition, first printing. Text is unmarked; pages are bright, though the top edge of the pages is lightly foxed. Binding is sturdy. Dust jacket is worn around the edges and there is a 2" slice on the front of the dust jacket. The dust jacket spine is a little faded and there is the remnants of an old price sticker on the back of the dust jacket.
