This was a really fascinating combination of topics that were really interesting to think about in conjunction with one another. Beautiful prose, as always, and the writing of personal narrative to politics to history was well woven. I enjoyed the style, particularly the way it was addressed to a group of students and thought about writing and reading as forces. I appreciated the brevity of it but I also wouldn't have minded a longer book that explicitly tied everything together. But I think Coates is asking the reader to do that for themselves, and I do appreciate the challenge.