Artistic licence: Masterful art of reviewing

One of the weird minor perks of being a book reviewer is that you sometimes find yourself quoted on the covers of paperbacks. It can make you feel powerful, in a completely powerless sort of way. I sometimes like to imagine growing so influential as

What qualifies as a literary masterpiece, and what doesn’t? Picture: Thinkstock
What qualifies as a literary masterpiece, and what doesn’t? Picture: Thinkstock

Browsing the other day, I found myself excerpted on the inside covers of two novels newly paperbacked: Damon Galgut’s Arctic Summer and Zia Haider Rahman’s In The Light Of What We Know, both of which I reviewed in these pages when they were first published last year. I enjoyed, as one does in such moments, a small thrill of complacency. But what was this? ...