I enjoyed delving back into the world of literary criticism, reading and annotating this book, but I think my enjoyment was probably hampered by not being familiar with Smiley‘s books (which she references A LOT) and the inclusion of a sizable number of rather obscure novels. Smiley had a lot of insightful things to say about the art of novel writing & reading, but I did skim a lot in sections about books I didn‘t have personal experience with.