An Advertisement for Myself

My You Can’t Read This Book: Censorship in an Age of Freedom is out this week. As the title says, it’s about freedom of speech, a subject that has come to mean more and more to me as I have watched religious zealots intimidate liberals into silence, and the libel laws and omerta of City hierarchies stop investigations into a catastrophic financial system when they might have made a difference.

Writing in this week’s magazine, Alain de Botton talks about how authors can loathe critics, a feeling prompted in his case by a savage attack from Terry Eagleton. He ought to be less concerned. Given the professor’s ability to combine support for religious reaction with the support for the worst elements of  the authoritarian Marxist tradition, a bad notice from that quarter is not an unmitigated disaster.

I have some had some raves from the Evening Standard and Ed West at the Telegraph. Meanwhile I could live to be 100 and never read anything as flattering as the intro to Julie Burchill’s review in Prospect:

‘Nick Cohen’s books are like the best Smiths songs; however depressing the content, the execution is so shimmering, so incandescent with indignation that the overall effect is transcendently uplifting.’

The most interesting writing came from the Mancunian novelist Max Dunbar in 3AM magazine. He had actually read and thought about the book — and, as many authors know from reading between the lines, not all critics do that. He tells the readers what it is about, and adds his own thoughts on both my work and the wider subject. In other words, he produces a genuine critical essay, which one rarely sees today.

The less than ecstatic reviews haven’t been bad at all — so far, at any rate. (More ‘sniffers’ than ‘stinkers’.) I particularly enjoyed the professionalism of the defence by John Lloyd of the Financial Times of the English libel laws that have served the FT’s City readership so well. Lloyd carried it off without a hint of ironic self-awareness.

Anyway, this is the last time I will discuss my book with Spectator readers. Working girls at King’s Cross have more dignity than authors with a book to sell. But even we must know when it is time to turn the last trick.

If you want to buy it, I would be gratitude personified. You can get it on Amazon here. If you want to support your local bookshop or library, as I hope you do, they should have it too.