For nearly five decades Diana Athill edited (nursed, coerced, coaxed) some of the most celebrated writers in the English language, among them V. S. Naipaul, Philip Roth, Mordecai Richler, and Norman Mailer. A founding editor of the prestigious publishing house André Deutsch Ltd., Athill takes us on a guided tour through the corridors of literary London, offering a keenly observed, devilishly funny, and always compassionate insider's portrait of the glories and pitfalls of making books.Stetis spiced with candid insights about the type of people who make brilliant writers and ingenious publishers, and the idiosyncrasies of both. It brims with Athill's memories of serving as confidante, midwife, and sometime therapist to great literary figures: Nobody who has read Jean Rhys' first four novels can suppose that she was good at life; but no one who never met her could know how very bad she was at it"; It was my job to listen to [Naipaul's] unhappiness and...