John Walsh’s memoir of 1980s literary London is a study of publishing at full social volume: parties, prizes, gossip, rivalries and a lot of lunches.

Moving among authors, editors, critics, agents and booksellers, Walsh recalls a period when literary culture still had the confidence—and occasionally the vanity—of a recognisable world unto itself.

The book is strongest as an insider’s social history. There's a lot of gossip, around personalities, grudges and institutions: Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Julian Barnes, Angela Carter and many others appear within a culture simultaneously serious about literature and helplessly addicted to theatre. It is affectionate without being naïve, alert to the comedy of reputations being manufactured in real time.

For readers drawn to publishing history, literary gossip and the sociology of cultural prestige: a portrait of the decade when British letters became a circus, and everyone important insisted they were merely passing through the tent.

Constable hardcover, 2022. First edition, first printing. Light shelfwear to dust jacket; internally clean and firmly bound.