Charming is the word here. Carpenter does an excellent job showing us what makes this crew (Greene, Green, Waugh, Connolly, Powell, Betjeman) so attractive, without denying the genuinely silly or offensive side of their lives. The stress is on Waugh, which is probably a little unfair; even if you want to say he was the most talented of the group, it's fair to say Green, Greene and Powell all produced more impressive work- and I say this as a Waugh-lover. But you won't even notice as you read. You could call the book 'novelistic' if people still wrote novels that were as readable as Greene's or Powell's, but since they don't calling this novelistic might be an insult. He's also surprisingly acute on his brief sections on the novels, although prone to a bit too much make too much of the biographical detail's relationship to the gents' literary production. Highly recommended. ( )

Fascinating, wide-ranging in its small focus, full of tidbits and nuggets about Waugh, Acton, Greene, Beaton and many more. One comes away thinking Waugh must have been a sad and difficult man.