Just what I needed
by John Carey
Writing in The Believer, Nick Hornby likes What Good Are The Arts? by John Carey so much that I had to get a copy, even though (as a glance at the Books Purchased list at left will demonstrate) the last thing I need right now is a book.
His calm, wry logic ... enables him to demolish the arguments of just about everyone who has ever talked tosh about objective aesthetic principles. And this group, it turns out, includes anyone who has ever talked about objective aesthetic principles.... Carey's approach to the whole sorry mess is the only one that makes any sense.