Like Kafka might have said, don't bug meHaving loathed Every Book Its Reader, a work that (laboriously second-hand, bulked out with fawning interviews) I'd foolishly assumed to be atypical, I thought I'd glance at this one, acquired earlier - and what do I find? This inane flibbertigibbet, this bumbling provincial newspaperman cluttering up the study of the great Umberto Eco. A few lines of Basbanes in the morning act like a slap of aftershave round the chops. Brrr!