adventures in the book world

it augurs well for a book when the introduction is well-written, doesnt it? The late Elizabeth Young's Pandora's Handbag: Adventures In The Book World opens with an introduction by Will Self, who seems to have nothing but praise for Young and when I began reading, I realised why. She has such intellect and wit that is intriguing and at the same time, easy to read, unlike some plodding critics who are just full of themselves.

Self had this one amazing paragraph that I'm gonna type out, because well, I'm a reader and a lover of books.

""So, if you are there in the counterpane land of the serious reader, like Liz herself, with a book permanently propped on your blanketed knee, I urge not to lose faith. More than this, i want you to take the volume you are holding as an article of that faith which Liz so lucidly espoused. The best of writing presents intimacy as a given tautology; it is aimed at precisely the right kind of person, the person who will feel and understand just this writing. Liz was, in this respect, the best of writers. She was also a writer who believed in the secret communion of readers and texts; that the text, like some vastly superior analog precursor of the internet chat room, provided a neutral arena within which individuals of all ages, genders, races, classes and sexual inclinations could meet and freely mingle. Again and again in her literary criticism she confronts us with this idealised zone, that yet for her - and any other committed reader - is nonetheless profoundly real.''