It’s a tribute to David Lodge’s writing skill that I found this novel absorbing and poignant even though I’ve never read anything by H.G. Wells and have no particular interest in him. As a biographical novel about a well-known ...

You’ve heard that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but what about judging books by their titles? Despite the perennial admonitions from good-natured and tolerant book-lovers, I daresay we all do it all the time: take on...

I have a little theory that all of the new contenders for the title of ‘Great American Novel’ are required to include an episode of scatological humor. Think of Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom (2010), in which a young man must sift ...