Book description
Following The Broken Estate, The Irresponsible Self,
and How Fiction Works - books that established James Wood as
the leading critic of his generation - The Fun Stuff confirms
Wood's pre-eminence, not only as a discerning judge but also as an
appreciator of the contemporary novel.
In twenty-three passionate, sparkling dispatches - that range over
such crucial writers as Thomas Hardy, Leo Tolstoy, and Edmund Wilson -
Wood offers a panoramic look at the modern novel. He effortlessly
connects his encyclopaedic, eloquent understanding of the literary
canon with an equally in-depth analysis of the most important authors
writing today, including Cormac McCarthy, Kazuo Ishiguro, and V. S. Naipaul.
Included in The Fun Stuff are the title essay on Keith Moon
and the lost joys of drumming - which was a finalist for last year's
National Magazine Awards - as well as Wood's essay on George Orwell,
which Christopher Hitchens selected for the Best American Essays
2010. The Fun Stuff is indispensable reading for anyone who
cares about contemporary literature.
James Wood is a staff writer at
The New Yorker
and a visiting lecturer at Harvard. In addition to
How Fiction Works
, he is the author of two essay collections,
The Broken Estate
and
The Irresponsible Self
, and a novel,
The Book Against God
.
