Lives of the Mind

Mr. Kimball, one of the best of our cultural critics, offers a lively and penetrating study of genius-and pseudo-genius-at work, and investigates the use and abuse of intelligence. Drawing on figures as various as Plutarch and Hegel, Kierkegaard and P.G. Wodehouse, Elias Canetti and Anthony Trollope, he provides a sharply observed tour of Western intellectual and artistic aspiration. A master of the genre, as collections of his pieces attest, none more impressively than this set. -Booklist Starred Review