Do you feel spiritually improved after a visit to an art gallery, more refined when you spend a night at the opera, wiser when you’ve finished a classic novel? Ever wondered if the arts really are everything they’re cracked up to be? In this bestselling and highly controversial work, John Carey takes on our preconceptions about the good of the arts – and comes up with some surprising answers.

John Carey

John Carey has been at various points in his life a soldier, a barman, a television critic, a beekeeper, a printmaker and a professor of literature at Oxford. His many books include The Intellectuals and the Masses and Faber anthologies on the subjects of Reportage, Science and Utopias. What Good Are the Arts? was published by Faber in 2005.

"Informative, thought-provoking and entertaining." David Lodge, Sunday Times

"Savagely amusing and pointed fun." D.J. Taylor, Independent

"Brilliant, erudite and often hilarious." Julian Baggini, Sunday Herald