Martin Amis's final collected journalism volume has its interesting moments, including a tempering of his love of Nabokov, doubts about Jeremy Corbyn, and thoughts on Larkin and Germany, which I contrast with Barbara Pym's as described in Paule Byrne's biography The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym . 

In this episode I also look back on the novels as whole, including a discussion of Shifts by Christopher Meredith and how its portrayal of working class characters compares with Amis, Amis's ways of ending his books, and the recurrent device of playing with the status of the text to create more distance between the author and the events portrayed, rejecting the model of Thackeray's Vanity Fair with its overt treatment of the characters and puppets.

And finally, having covered all of Martin's novels, I discuss what will happen next: moving onto Kingsley Amis's books.

Content note: brief refercnes to child sexual abuse and suicide