This collection includes Jonson on Shakespeare; Hazlitt on Coleridge; Philip Roth dashing the hopes of a dying Bernard Malamud;and V.S. Naipaul leaving Paul Theroux to pay the bill for tea. As W.H. Auden observed, writers have no small talk when they meet; as evidenced here, this frequently leads to fireworks. An anthology of rivalry, jealousy, hatred, bitterness and revenge, dotted with occasional moments of admiration, magnanimity and affection
D1