The War Against Cliche: Essays and Reviews 1971-2000

Cleveland Plain Dealer

Sharply written...striking assessment.

Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

A man of enormous wit, blinding intelligence, and instructive passion.

Miami Herald

Terrific . . . The collection is an absolute necessity for avid lovers of literature, most of whom will agree that Judge Time is most likely to be kind to a writer as fine as Amis.

Michiko Kakutani

In The War Against Cliché, these reviews and essays provide a melodic accompaniment to Mr. Amis's glittering achievements as a novelist.
— New York Times

New York Post

His writing makes this a rare book of criticism, its pages full of grinning wit, piercing insight and confident, modest erudition.

New York Times Book Review

Amis's journalism is narrowly focused but uncannily vivid. He proselytizes for talent by demonstrating it, by doing it, by believing in its necessity, himself.

Newsday

Amis has amassed a collection of material so sharp that it reminds you not only of why he was invited to the party in the first place, but why he might stay longer than some of the other literary loudmouths.

Rocky Mountain News

Amis' talent is to write books and book reviews, and to do both very well.

San Francisco Chronicle

Whatever the book, there is no one whose review of it you'd rather read.

San Jose Mercury News

A delicious book...Amis sets such a high standard.

Seattle Times Post Intelligencer

This fine collection performs an essential job of book criticism: It makes you want to go out and read.

Time Out New York

Illuminating....unfailingly funny, perceptive and guillotine-sharp.

Village Voice

His arguments inject charm and energy...Amis's prose combines a liveliness and vulnerability that's rare in criticism.

Washington Post

As a critic, Amis is honest and patient. The man's a genius with words. As one avidly turns page after page, Amis deftly keeps the reader's excitement ratcheted up.

Library Journal

Amis's critiques cover wide-ranging topics and are well worth reading, particularly when the erudition on display is liberated by humor, regarding not only the subject under examination but often the examiner himself. Amis, best known for his novels (e.g., London Fields, The Information), recognizes an authorial foible, then pounces on it not without grace, not without vigor. His evaluations are lively, scholarly, and, on rare occasion, numbing though probably less so for those few who know as much about literature as Amis. Requiring less literary background are his essays on poker or chess, Elvis Presley, or the sexual allure of Margaret Thatcher. The Amis view is at its best or at least at its most readable when he is chatting up such standards as Don Quixote, Pride and Prejudice, Ulysses, and Lolita. His lengthy commentary on Nabokov, Larkin, and Updike certainly informs, as do shorter pieces on Roth, Burroughs, Capote, Burgess, and Vidal. To paraphrase Vidal, the best writing allows the reader to participate. Without question, Amis appreciates this concept and puts it into practice in his most accomplished criticisms. Recommended for academic libraries. Robert L. Kelly, Fort Wayne Community Schs., IN Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.