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“... books with titles like How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers Won the FA Cup, a novel of 1975 by one J.L. Carr, as well as G.H. Goodchild’s handy wartime guide, Keeping Poultry and Rabbits on Scraps. There seems not to have been a dreadful piece of fiction published in 20th-century England that he hasn’t devoured. What claims his attention are irredeemably minor ...”

“... left to suppose that they might sometime begin to work. By a strange synchronistic phenomenon J.L. Carr’s A Month in the Country is like Paul Bailey’s latest novel, a short admirably written story about two survivors from World War One. But they are not old soldiers: it is set in the summer of 1920. Birkin, who tells his own tale, has been hired to uncover ...”

“... turn disconsolately to two novels shortlisted for the Booker-McConnell Prize for Fiction. J.L. Carr’s The Battle of Pollocks Crossing is a fairly short book offering traditional English complaints against the United States. The hero, George Gidner, goes to Dakota in 1929, leaving his teaching job in Bradford to attempt something similar in the Wild ...”

“... the Orwellian echo is too grandiose for the occasion, and as for the pastoral novelists – J.L. Carr and the late Don Bannister – one must hope that they are not unceremoniously ditched in Taylor’s next volume. Is modern fiction inadequate because the modern world is too complex for the novelist to grasp? Taylor took this view in A Vain Conceit, though ...”

“... porn to their wholesome, safe, art-loving scrutiny, making them just as hygienic as the rest. 1 July. Watch the commentary and round-ups (they could hardly be called highlights) after the England-Portugal match. One Shakespearean moment at the start when Cristiano Ronaldo comes up behind his Manchester team-mate Rooney and nuzzles him, saying something that ...”