The Dreaming Swimmer

‘He writes like a prophet and he can satirise folly in high places with a touch as elegant as Oscar Wilde . . . There isn’t a word wasted’ Daily Mail

‘A well-balanced show of wit, intellect and glorious observation’ Sunday Times

‘No one wields a joke more punchily than he does. And the wide capacity for warmth towards all sorts of experience – from Billy Connolly to Primo Levi – is impressively exemplary in our culturally divided and divisive times’ Observer

‘Very funny . . . breathtakingly good literary essays. Mr James is excellent on television – when he is on it, or reviewing it’ Sunday Telegraph

‘James’s hilarity is often a powerful support for his argument, but as well as vintage Jamesian japery there are many excellent things in this collection’ New Statesman & Society