Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents ix
3. 1. The Glimmer Factor: Anthony Burgess’s 99 Novels 1
4. 2. Lord Leighton, Liberace and the Advantages of Bad Writing: Helen DeWitt, Harry Stephen Keeler, Lionel Shriver, George Eliot 11
5. 3. Mouthy Pleasures and the Problem of Momentum: Gary Lutz, Lolita, Lydia Davis, Jonathan Lethem 26
6. 4. The Acoustical elegance of Aphorism: Kafka, Fielding, Austen, Flaubert 35
7. 5. Tempo, Repetition and a Taxonomy of Pacing: Peter Temple, Neil Gaiman, A. L. Kennedy, Edward P. Jones 55
8. 6. Late Style: The Golden Bowl and Swann’s Way 68
9. 7. Disordered Sentences: Georges Perec, Roland Barthes, Wayne Koestenbaum, Luc Sante 96
10. 8. Details That Linger and the Charm of Voluntary Reading: George Pelecanos, Stephen King, Thomas Pynchon 127
11. 9. The Ideal Bookshelf: The Rings of Saturn and The Line of Beauty 134
12. 10. The Bind of Literature and the Bind of Life: Voices from Chernobyl, Thomas Bernhard, Karl Ove Knausgaard 166
13. Notes 177
14. A Reading List 183
15. Index 187