Showing The Letters of Kingsley Amis by Kingsley Amis

As well as being a prolific novelist, Kingsley Amis loved to write letters. And whether one views him as a comic genius or misanthropic bar-fly, his literary output alone justifies the publication of this comprehensive collection. Here are fulminations to the press, laddish porn-swapping with best friend Philip Larkin, along with numerous communications, charming and vitriolic, to editors and agents.

Those seeking revelations might be disappointed but browsers will find a treasury of poignant detail. As an undergraduate, Amis advises Larkin on girls; he's still doing so 30 years later. As a father, he cloaks pride with irony ("Scoundrelly Mart has sold his novel to the Yanks", he fumes, a propos of Martin Amis's The Rachel Papers). An avowed enemy of sentiment, he pens touching notes to his second wife, replete with pet names and illustrations. Later, he is vulnerable--terrified by alcoholism, widening waistbands and false teeth. This collection does not pretend to provide a key to his complex personality, but amply fulfils Amis's own prophecy: "What a feast is awaiting chaps ... when our ... letters come out". Not even appetites of Amis's proportions could digest this feast at one sitting--The Letters of Kingsley Amis is a book to be savoured over a lifetime. --Matthew Baylis