I was looking forward to this book for quite some time. John Carey is one of the most revered academics of his time, having risen to Merton Professor of English Literature and established himself as one of the leading anti-elitist literary critics. In this latter capacity, he twice chaired the Man Booker Prize Committee. Taking all of this into account, I was anticipating an enjoyable saunter through his literary memoirs. Sadly, that hope never materialised. Despite what I imagine to be a wealth of opportunities for amusing literary anecdotes, this book never quite got into its stride.

Despite his reputation for concise reviews, his own book seemed curiously long-winded. The passages about his childhood at grammar school and then as an undergraduate in Oxford seemed curiously sterile. I was, admittedly, disappointed to find him so dismissive of Old English (though he did concede the wonders to be encountered in the works of Chaucer), but I would have felt that mattered less if he had spent longer discussing the works that he did enjoy. ( )

Curled up on my sofa in mid-winter with the wood-burner blazing under my faux fur throw reading John Carey's memoir of his war-time childhood and journey into a literary life is utter bliss. What did I want from this book? I wanted the fantasy of an Oxford education and the nostalgia of a bygone era and by crikey I got it in spades. I have already read ' The Intellectuals and the Masses ' which may be the only book which quite literally had my jaw dropping throughout and really made me question my own reverence to the world of literature and the literary canon and so I was chomping at the bit to read The Unexpected Professor and find out more about Carey's life. Being an unashamed bibliophile Carey's memoir was an absolute treat. There he is amongst the dreaming spires actually living literature! He had me hooked from the moment he gave his views on the demise of grammar schools ( my Dad's been saying that for years!!! ) He brought my own reality into his ( his memories on Israel have been a topic of conversation in our home recently ) So thank you Mr Carey you let me play with you and with Tolkien, Milton, Donne, Orwell, Woolf and many many others if only for a brief moment - and on I go inspired and energised. ( )

I very much enjoyed [The intellectuals and the masses] and his book on Thackeray, so I had high hopes for a John Carey autobiography. And this is a very enjoyable read, with intelligent, entertaining accounts of wartime childhood in London and Nottinghamshire, National Service as an infantry subaltern in Egypt, and Oxford life as an undergraduate in the fifties and an English fellow thereafter. There are plenty of witty anecdotes and bits of lightning literary analysis, reasonable numbers of names are dropped, and a few icons are clasted in passing. Nothing very spectacular, and not much to stretch the mind: a holiday book to be enjoyed by people who remember some of the things he is talking about, not the sort of memoir that becomes a manifesto for the author's field of studies. ( )