Lydia Davis, like an inspirational teacher, tempts her readers into more reading

A good indicator of just how interesting and alluring Lydia Davis’s Essays proved might be my recent credit card statement. It was hard to read very far without being introduced to an unfamiliar author, and the terms of the introduction were frequently so seductive that I found myself breaking off to order several secondhand books. The fee for writing this review had long been swallowed up when I realised that if I read everything that Davis made sound irresistible I would probably never reach the end of this splendid collection — and end up like Achilles chasing the tortoise in Zeno’s paradox.

A writer of literary essays who encourages her readers to discover new works, to re-read familiar classics and to shift unexamined prejudices that have left authors untouched has done her job. In Davis’s case, I returned to Madame Bovary; and I was pushed towards both the growing reputation of James Agee and the unfashionable novels of Edward Dahlberg.