I’ve written previously about the pleasures of reading book reviews. And the time saved in not reading the books themselves (except on an occasional basis).
This came to mind rather forcibly in the case of a new tome,
Distant Intimacy: A Friendship in the Age of the Internet. It’s a book filled
with the email correspondence between two famous writers who have never met –
Frederic Raphael in England and Joseph Epstein in America.
Judging by David Collard’s review in the current issue of
the Literary Review, it consists mostly of personal self-congratulation and
contempt for other writers.
Best avoided, I would think.
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