“Overall, NB might be loosely described as a gossip column for the erudite, but during the first 20 years of the present century, James Campbell made it into something more—a uniquely personal miscellany of wit, weirdness, and waspish provocation."
—Michael Dirda, Washington Post
"Campbell wrote about writers who pretend not to read their reviews, and biographers who hate their subjects. He wrote about pop lyrics derived from classic literature. . . . There are animadversions against literary back-scratching. Campbell sought to distinguish the sham from the genuine. He was interested in everything. . . . NB is the sort of column that people looked at and thought, 'I could do that.' Turns out they couldn’t."
—Dwight Garner, New York Times
NB by J. C., a collection of James Campbell’s best columns from the TLS, is a guide to the literary pleasures and absurdities of the past two decades.
For over twenty years, James Campbell wrote the popular NB column on the back page of The Times Literary Supplement, signing it “J. C.” The initials were not intended as a disguise, but to provide freedom to the persona. “J. C.” was irreverent, whimsical, occasionally severe. The column had a low tolerance for the literary sins of pomposity, hypocrisy, and cant. It took aim at contemporary absurdities resulting from identity politics or from academic jargon. Readers of NB by J. C. will find not only an off-beat guide to our cultural times, but entries from The TLS Reviewer’s Handbook, which offered regular advice on the cultivation of a good writing style. “Above all, aspire to the Three E’s: elegance, eloquence, and entertainment.”
The Introduction offers a history of the TLS from its beginnings through its precarious stages of adaptation and survival.
“The secret of J. C.’s weekly column is its unique mix of anonymity with intimacy: this ‘stranger’, whom we meet over our morning coffee, is the most discreet and delightful of guides to what’s happening―good or mostly bad―in the literary world, with all its pretensions, follies, and occasional triumphs. I especially relished J. C.’s prizes―for the worst prose or the silliest blurb. Then again, leave it to J. C. to find the rare edition, the forgotten book of poems that deserves another look. True wit, coupled with wisdom: it’s the rarest of writerly feats.”
―Marjorie Perloff, author of The Vienna Paradox: A Memoir
“I receive immense pleasure from J. C.’s columns. Something more than pleasure: warmth, laughter, gratitude (especially when he is nailing academic unreadability).”
—Vivian Gornick, author of Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-Reader
Introduction
NB 2001 – 2006
Interlude: How It Was
NB 2007 – 2009
Interlude: Poor J.C.
NB 2010 – 2013
Interlude: The Murdoch Shilling
NB 2014 – 2017
Interlude: “Get on with it”
NB 2018-2020
Acknowledgements
James Campbell's books include Invisible Country: A Journey through Scotland, Gate Fever: Voices from a Prison, Talking at the Gates: A Life of James Baldwin, and, most recently, Just Go Down to the Road (Paul Dry Books). For many years he was an editor and columnist at the Times Literary Supplement. He lives in London.
