Visiting Mrs Nabokov and Other Excursions

First edition. 8vo. Pp. 274. Black cloth boards, lettered in gilt to spine; red endpapers. Dustjacket designed by Peter Dyer with an illustration by Paul Burgess.

Signed by Author to title-page.

A collection of book reviews, interviews, author profiles, and occasional pieces, originally published in the pages of The Observer, The Guardian, and sundry other publications. Encompassing the full gamut of contemporary politics and culture (high and low), he homes in on the razzamatazz of a Republican convention in New Orleans, Madonna's ferocious publicity machine, to the collection centrepiece of the dirty tricks behind the 1986 Karpov/Kasparov chess match. The title essay details a day spent in the company of Véra Nabokov, the widow of one of Amis's literary heroes, Vladimir Nabokov. "The brainy, sarcastic, tender intelligence at the centre of these pieces can make you laugh out loud: they can also move you to tears." –People