Thanks to Sarah (who accompanied it with some greatly appreciated praise of her own), I returned from my Secure Undisclosed Location to find Victoria A. Brownworth’s review of A Terry Teachout Reader, published in yesterday’s Baltimore Sun:
Teachout’s engaging style and diversity of tastes means there is something for everyone in this book as he covers subjects from Elvis Presley to John Steinbeck (the newly adopted darling of the Oprah book club) to the end of vinyl to the horrific lynching of an African-American man in the town he grew up in. For those who enjoy criticism, this Reader is a book to savor, get angry with and reflect upon.
If Teachout has one consistent topic it is genius – great (Louis Armstrong), middling (Dawn Powell) and small (Randolph Scott) – and the majority of pieces collected here – essays, profiles, reviews – reflect that attraction. One charming trait of Teachout the cultural critic is he appears to genuinely want his readers to enjoy what he enjoys (those who read criticism know how rare that is in a critic) or at the very least understand why he so enjoys it….
Read the whole thing here.