Taylor, D. J. "Review of HOW FICTION WORKS, by James Wood." THE INDEPENDENT February 3, 2008.

Whatever one may think about James Wood's constant ejaculations, his ceremonious name-dropping ("W G Sebald once said to me...") and his lecture-hall mannerisms – more of these in a moment – he really is an A-grade exponent of what university syllabi used to call "practical criticism". Some of the best bits of this brief but luminous primer – and they are very good indeed – come when Wood strips the engine of some fabled fictional juggernaut down to its component parts with the aim of establishing just how a piece of prose works to bring off its effects, the way in which, as he puts it, a novel "teaches us how to read its narrator". . . . Read the rest here: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/how-fiction-works-by-james-wood-776499.html.