All the latest news and reviews of books by author James Wood.
July 2020
Reading group
How White Teeth brushes off the charge of ‘hysterical realism’
Zadie Smith’s debut was lined up alongside Pynchon and DeLillo as a morbid symptom of a trend towards fiction trying to cram too much in
November 2019
Book of the day
Serious Noticing: Selected Essays by James Wood review – something to behold
Whether interrogating Chekhov or Jane Austen, the New Yorker literary critic has the eye of a great novelist
March 2018
Upstate by James Wood review – big questions, and bigger risks
The new novel from the literary critic engages with profound philosophical dilemmas through a story of family relationships and mental fragility
Book of the day
Upstate by James Wood – review
The hero of James Wood’s midlife novel spends too much time with his implausibly well-organised thoughts
A life in ...
Critic turned author James Wood: ‘Sometimes I think I’ve lost my nerve. I’m not slaying people any more’
As a reviewer, James Wood earned a fearsome reputation. With his own novel Upstate landing on critics’ desks, he talks about writing, family and his ‘buoyant’ disposition
August 2015
The Nearest Thing to Life by James Wood review – ‘the foremost literary enthusiast of our time’
Part memoir, part literary criticism, this beautiful, open-ended book celebrates fiction’s ability to allow the reader to escape into other lives
April 2015
Literary critic James Wood: ‘I’m taking a religious view of an earthly form’
James Wood’s new book tells how novels gave him freedom to think when he was growing up. Has he become an evangelist for literature?
February 2013
The Fun Stuff and Other Essays by James Wood – review
The great critic James Wood turns his gaze on the likes of Paul Auster and WG Sebald in a fascinating collection of essays, writes Andrew Anthony
January 2008
A life of their own: James Wood studies character
From Jane Eyre to Jean Brodie, David Copperfield to David Brent, whether solidly realised or lightly sketched, fictional figures can be as vivid to us as real people. But just what, exactly, is a character?
