James Wood has a new book out this week. It's How Fiction Works and the early reviews have focused more on the critic than the book. But then, it's probably not surprising for the critic that everyone seems to love to hate.
Still, here is a guy of enormous talent and influence who decided pretty empahtically that reviewing books what what he wanted to do with his life. From a profile on him in this weekend's Financial Times:
Wood's chief obstacle lay in persuading the paper that had given him the journalism award to let him write about books. The then editor of The Guardian, Peter Preston, responded that, yes, Wood could live a life of borderline dereliction in Brixton punctuated by the odd, finely spun essay for a literary magazine but that, on the whole, he should consider beginning as an apprentice reporter: book reviewing was not a proper occupation.
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