'… a book with everything in it, a fascinating melange, going in all directions at once' - Hanif Kureishi, Guardian (Books of the Year) 'A blockbuster of a book, a work which will inspire admiration and wonder … writing with equal assurance about poetry, novels, painting, architecture, film and music ' - Sunday Telegraph 'Conrad is stunningly well-informed, compulsively allusive ... Read moreand equipped with the kind of imagination that transforms the base metal of contemporary history into pure gold ' - Robert McCrum, Observer 'Tells the story of modern cultural history with unflagging freshness, and without an ounce of surplus stylistic fat' - Terry Eagleton, London Review of Books Show Less