Book Description

A collection of essays “filled with pleasantly rambling opinions about everything from self-help books to erotica” from the celebrated Canadian author (The Chronicle Journal). An urbane, robust, and wonderfully opinionated voice from Canada, sometimes called “America’s attic,” speaks here of the delights of reading, and of what mass education has done to readers today, to taste, to books, to culture. With his usual wit and breadth of vision, Robertson Davies ranges through the world of letters—books renowned and obscure, old and recent; English, Irish, Canadian, and American writers both forgotten and fondly remembered. “Sweet reason in the raiment of well-woven prose? Most assuredly. Good humor agraze over broad literary demesnes? No doubt of it. Forgotten popular favorites rescued and rehabilitated? Certainly. A parade of agreeable prejudices? He would not be a true Canadian if he did not have them. Lightheartedness where needed? Yes. Seriousness where it counts? Yes. Wit, satirical touches, firm indignations, sound sense, good taste, judiciousness, cosmopolitan breadth of view, urbanity, sanity, unexpected eccentricities, educated humanism? By all means. It is indeed by all these means and more that this book of essays and observations bestows its multiple benefactions, and anyone picking it up is bound north to pleasure and profit.”—The New York Times