“The annual post-prandial lecturette on Booker night has been a thing of controversy in the hands of Lisa Jardine (too populist), Gerald Kaufman (too sinister), Kenneth Baker (too fulsome) or Carmen Callil (too critical of the home product). John Carey, however, is someone you can trust. Among the politicians, publishers, historians and media tarts who judge the Booker, he is a bona fide literary-critical star. He retired four years ago as the Merton Professor of English Literature at Oxford, (the top Eng Lit job in the land) and his weekly reviews are by common consent the ne plus ultra of waspish evaluation.”