Nobody's perfect - Anthony Lane

Nobody's Perfect, the much anticipated collection from the New Yorker critic, brings together a generous selection of Lane's film criticisms, profiles, book reviews, and essays on art and culture. In the manner of Edmund Wilson and Kenneth Tynan, Lane embraces high and low with equal gusto, clearly having a marvelous time. Whether he's writing about T. S. Eliot or Judith Krantz, Alfred Hitchcock or Andre Gide, to read him-or better yet, to reread him-is to be carried along on a current of passionate declamation and urgent inquiry, wry reflection and penetrating wit. Taken together, these pieces reflect some of the most brilliant writing and thinking to have graced the pages of the New Yorker, and they impart a cultural and artistic literacy of the highest order.This, Lane's first book, is an exhilarating volume for fans old and new.

'Frequently prowling miles away from film - into Legoland for instance - he consistently surprises and delights with a heady blend of erudition and effervescence' Independent on Sunday

'Lane is the most entertaining writer in the New Yorker . . . the ant's pants, the bee's knees, the king of the hill. Some people can just do it; the rest of us only wish we could' Observer

'Nobody's Perfect, a cornucopia of the fruits of Anthony Lane's nigh-on decade as film critic with the New Yorker magazine, is a superb collection' Guardian

'A glory. Throughout, Lane upholds the sterling virtue of good writing combined with wit and emotional engagement . . . Nobody's Perfect is a gorgeous plum pudding of a book' Spectator

'An outstanding collection of journalism' Daily Telegraph

'Dapper prose, erudite allusions and blithe spirit' Time Out

'Readers will realise with delight that here is a critic quite prepared to snack happily on the lower slopes of Parnassus as on its heights, urbane enough to trust his own judgement on when art house cinema needs a good kicking, and knowledgeable enough without making his readers feel that they are in the presence of a show-off' Scotsman