Kate Kellaway at The Guardian:
In her introduction, Mary-Kay Wilmers, editor of the LRB, writes: “One of the pleasures of reading Jenny Diski, especially the essays, is that pleasure is such a large part of it.” Diski was worth hiring on any subject: feed her base metal, she turned it into gold. When not writing about herself, she is at her best considering the nasty and/or nondescript. Her subjects include Jeffrey Dahmer, Howard Hughes and Richard Branson, and she does not let Christine Keeler get away with a stuffy, faux-respectable take on her past. It is only because she has forced her way through “every damn word” of Keith Richards’s coarsely self-serving autobiography (in which he reveals Mick Jagger has a “tiny todger”) that she is determined to go ahead with her review. She is the most undeceived of writers – and surprising. Who else would combine reviewing a biography of Denis Thatcher with a reading of Melville’s Moby-Dick?
more here.