For Love or Money

Reading him, talking to him as I have over fifty years, he has made my work better and me happier." – Paul Theroux This collection of writing undertaken for love and money is about books and travel, and makes for an engrossing and candid exploration of what it means to live from writing. Jonathan Raban weighs up the advantages of maintaining an independent spirit against problems of insolvency and self-worth, confesses to travel as an escape from the blank page, and ponders the true art of the book review. Along the way, he admires the role of the literary editor and remembers with affection and hilarity events from his eccentric life at the heart of literary London. Reading it is like embarking on a humane, rigorous and witty conversation about the writing life.