Dr Ross Wilson discusses the nature of the rave review in The New Statesman and asks whether it counts as criticism.

Getting to put “Booker Prize Winner” and, perhaps, a puff from the panel of judges on your dust-jacket is priceless. But can puffing – the practice of lauding a book’s merits in a few words, usually on its jacket blurb – be considered a kind of literary criticism, however cynically regarded it might be?