Published in 1986 this is a series of occasional pieces written for magazines and news papers.
There are 27 interviews and reviews included in this compilation and 26 of them are really interesting. The 27th was about someone I had never heard of and as this is about me, there you have it.
Amis covers Saul Bellow, Norman Mailer,Gloria Steinman, Truman Capote and many others as well as a couple of news events.
They are all very well written with Amis's humour running through them all. The only annoying thing is that while reading a interview on one of the subjects there will be a page break and you find that you are now reading a review of the latest book of the person that was previously being interviewed. At the end of the chapter you then find that it was cobbled together from two different articles from two different publications published many years apart!!!
But the above problem is not the authors but the editor's NOTE: Mr Editor it doesn't work.
The subjects and books are all interesting with a highlight being the Claus von Bulow trial. Not a nice man at all.
And this little one from the Joseph Heller chapter on a review of his novel "God Knows" - Like cunnilingus, tending sheep is dark and lonely work; but someone has to do it.
Highly recommended as a bath or travel collection, short sharp chapters that will entertain.
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