Columnists get unsolicited free copies of new books, it often seems by almost every post. They frequently come as publishers’ ‘uncorrected proofs’, before publication day. Publicists are of course hoping we might mention the book in something we write, and often there’s a friendly note inviting us to provide a quote for the book-cover’s inside sleeve – ‘Profound, moving and richly funny: best thing I’ve read all year’, that kind of thing.
As attitudes to homosexuality became more accepting, the British public were always one step ahead
You might think these offerings a boon: after all, nobody’s forcing us to respond or even...
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