Serious Noticing

In the unspooling sentences and paragraphs of the many fine and often seriously dandy essays that follow in this collection . . . Wood shows himself a maestro of tone and inflection. His sustained close attention as he interrogates the writers he loves is genuinely something to behold

Tim Adams, Observer

The two voices mingling in this collection give a beautiful, moving sense of the stakes of criticism as Wood has practiced it, vigorously, without interruption for 30 years... No modern critic has exerted comparable influence in how we read . . . Wood writes as if enmeshed in the text itself; registering shifts in point of view and perspective with seismographic precision

Parul Sehgal, The New York Times Book Review

Packed with…insight… [and a] concern for the messiness of emotional truth… Over the years, as this volume demonstrates, Wood has learned not only to dissect that habit of mind, but also to practise it

Tim Adams, Observer