Last winter, the 37-year-old literary critic and Wesleyan professor Merve Emre stood in front of a microphone in Rachel Comey's Soho boutique. The New York Review of Books was celebrating its new ...

One of the most influential men in our specialized society is the critic. His function hi every field of artistic development appears well defined: he is a sampler, a professional taster for millions.

Literary critics, I tweeted, should not be allowed to write reviews of biography. I’d make a few exceptions, I thought, but not many. A tweeter responded: “Not for literary figures?” I retweeted with ...