“Mr. Wood is recklessly committed to literature (if he weren’t so flexible, I’d be tempted to call him a fanatic), and brave enough to risk ridicule by pushing every thought to the limit. Caution doesn’t enter into the calculation: He shows us, candidly—in prose overcrowded with metaphor, prose that palpably yearns for maximum expression—how his head and heart respond to what he reads (which is just about everything). He’s growing before our eyes. It’s perhaps his most impressive quality.”