Brilliant, erudite, witty, sympathetic but not suffering fools, Larkin’s prose is remarkable enough to ensure his reputation as a literary critic separate from his poetry. In brief works about John Betjeman, Thomas Hardy, Anthony Powell, Barbara Pym, Rupert Brooks, Wilfred Owen, John Houseman, Walter de la Mare, Tennyson, W.H. Davies, Stevie Smith (Not waving, drowning) and even Ogden Nash, Larkin provides the quotes and significant biographical facts, the setting and other information to fascinate and interest. His love of James Bond novels and “who-done-its” by Gladys Mitchell is interesting.  “The first thing a novelist must provide is a separate world….a narrator who tempers an ironic perception of life’s absurdities with a keen awareness of its ability to bruise.”  Good book with lots of new words and references.