1. Home
  2. James Wood

James Wood

Serious Noticing

  • Serious Noticing

  • The selected essays of James Wood - our greatest living literary critic and author of How Fiction Works

    'James Wood is a close reader of genius... By turns luscious and muscular, committed and disdaining, passionate and minutely considered' John Banville

    James Wood is one of the leading critics of the age, and here, for the first time, are his selected essays. From the career-defining 'Hysterical Realism' to his more personal reflections on family, religion and sensibility, Serious Noticing offers a comprehensive overview of his writing over the last twenty years. These essays offer more than a viewpoint - they show how to bring the eye of critical reading to life as a whole.

    'James Wood is one of literature’s true lovers, and his deeply felt, contentious essays are thrilling in their reach and moral seriousness' Susan Sontag

Upstate
Upstate
James Wood
The Nearest Thing To Life
The Nearest Thing To Life
James Wood
The Fun Stuff and Other Essays
The Fun Stuff and Other Essays
James Wood
How Fiction Works
How Fiction Works
James Wood
The Irresponsible Self
The Irresponsible Self
James Wood
The Book Against God
The Book Against God
James Wood
The Broken Estate
The Broken Estate
James Wood

James Wood has been a staff writer at the New Yorker since 2007. In 2009, he won the National Magazine Award for reviews and criticism. He was the chief literary critic at the Guardian from 1992 to 1995, and a book critic at the New Republic from 1995 to 2007. He has published a number of books with Cape, including How Fiction Works, which has been translated into thirteen languages.

Our Use of Cookies

We use cookies to make our website work. If you click 'Accept All’ we will use cookies to understand how you use our services and to show you personalised advertising and other content. You can change your cookie settings by clicking 'Manage Cookies'. For more information please see our Cookie Policy

Our Use of Cookies

We use cookies on this site to enable certain parts of the site to function and to collect information about your use of the site so that we can improve our visitors’ experience.

For more on our cookies and changing your settings click here

Strictly Necessary

Strictly Necessary cookies enable core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility. You may disable these by changing your browser settings, but this may affect how the website functions. See More.

Analytics

Analytics cookies help us to improve our website by collecting and reporting information on how you use it. These cookies may be set by us or by third-party providers whose services we have added to our pages. See More.

Preferences & Features

Preference and Feature cookies allow our website to remember choices you make, such as your language preferences and any customisations you make to pages on our website during your visit. See More.

Targeting / Advertising

Targeting cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you and your interests. They perform functions like preventing the same content from reappearing, ensuring ads are displayed and, in some cases, selecting content based on your interests. See More.