The Business of Reading

Reviews / Votes

A wonderfully engaging and lucid account of some of the finest novels of the last hundred years, this is the work of a highly perceptive and knowledgeable reader, writing - often brilliantly - for people who love books and who want to understand them and their context better. Recommended simultaneously to bookworms and bibliophiles, academics and all aficionados of modern and contemporary fiction.
John Drew, Professor of English Literature, University of Buckingham
An engaging trip through (mostly) the major British novels of the twentieth century, plus some overlooked classics. Lovelock's readings are astute but never inaccessible, and his selections are canonical enough for the book to feel authoritative but idiosyncratic enough to be personable.
Tom Perrin, Professor of English, Huntingdon College, Montgomery, AL
The author's enthusiasm and knowledge seeps through on every page and he weaves together connections between the texts which will help trigger many a pleasurable discussion about the business of reading. As with any attempt at categorisation and classification, the absences will arouse as much attention as the inclusions. But the author justifies his choices and puts forward compelling reasons for their inclusion.
D.H. Lawrence Society, April 2022
Julian Lovelock writes in an engaging way, and his opinions are always worth hearing. Beyond the twenty-one novels he considers in detail, Lovelock refers to and recommends a whole raft of other books. He is a clear, persuasive and humane writer, whose judgement on novels I came to trust. 'I liked this, and so will you' may be an impossible claim to make, but I'm willing to give Lovelock's list a go.
Mike Hill, A Sort of Newsletter, May 2022