John Carey is emeritus professor at the University of Oxford. His recent titles include 100 Poets: A Little Anthology and A Little History of Poetry. Carey has been reviewing two books per month for the Sunday Times since the mid-1970s.
“For Carey, as this ridiculously enjoyable selection of his
greatest hits 1986–2021 demonstrates, the reconciliation of high
learning and popular reach is not a headache, but an art. . . .
From Sherlock Holmes to Germaine Greer, these reviews prove that
John Carey is the finest literary critic of our age.”—Sebastian
Faulks, Sunday Times
“John writes for the casual reader rather than the expert and
cleverly mines the books for their best anecdotes—making this an
engaging read.”—Thomas Barrie, House and Garden, “Gifts for
Bookworms”
“There’s much to savour in this collection of journalism by one of
Britain’s most perceptive literary critics. . . . Sunday Best is a
pleasure, and one can only marvel at the facility with which, over
and over again, Carey distinguishes the signal from the
noise.”—Rhodri Lewis, Prospect
“Surely the sharpest and wisest of our current critics—and the one
who makes us laugh too.”—Claire Tomalin
“John Carey is the finest literary critic of the age, and this
collection of his reviews is a calling card of his many virtues—the
breadth of his interests, his incisiveness, his fearlessness, his
wit, his wonderfully fierce moral vision, and above all his
clarity—you may search in vain for a semi-colon—and his desire to
communicate as broadly as possible. An exemplary collection from an
exemplary writer.”—Andrew Holgate, literary editor, Sunday
Times
“Whether he’s discussing the appeal of Sherlock Holmes or the
popularity of cannibalism in the siege of Leningrad, John Carey’s
reviews are always marvels of clarity, revelation, human warmth and
acerbic wit. This is literary journalism at its stylish
pinnacle.”—John Walsh, former literary editor, Sunday Times
“Unlike the majority of his colleagues and descendants, Carey never
switches code or shifts guises, speaking now as a populist, now as
a specialist. He has no need to—for more than 50 years, his taut,
spry, flexible, idiomatic style has enabled him to engage a large
non-specialist audience without, for the most part, stinting his
deep infectious belief that literature is serious, and
matters.”—Leo Robson, lead fiction reviewer, New Statesman
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