I was getting sour on Angela Carter, but turns out it was only EARLY Angela Carter! I'm a sucker for cool mean British book reviews, and these deliver--not just in a goofy "Consumer Reports" way, but showing the way Carter's enthusiasms and interests intersect and feed off of one another: Borges, Christina Stead, storytelling, folktales, hating on Bloomsburies, Japan. The Paul Theroux "My Secret History" review is perfect, and IIRC it's the only really negative review besides the cookbook reviews--which are honestly kind of a heavy slog, esp. if you bear no grudge against Elizabeth David--and it's refreshing to see a collection of reviews by an openly Mean Person that doesn't Make A Meal of taking down trash books. I like that; it is aspirational. I like a lot of this, not least the clear injunction to read Christina Stead now. If you don't just basically like sitting down to read a lot of book reviews, your time is maybe more productively spent elsewhere, I think, but if you do, this is good stuff.
What do You think about Expletives Deleted: Selected Writings (1993)?
