I encountered this book in the library, “Homage to Qwert Yuiop: Selected Journalism 1978-1985,” by Anthony Burgess. It’s just great. I think somebody should collect and print the rest of Burgess’s journalism too. (There do seem to be one or two other collections out there but I doubt they have the density of this overflowing volume of 589 pages of small print. I have a feeling they’re leaving out a lot of good stuff.) I’d also gladly buy an edition of the uncollected book reviews of Alfred Kazin or of Anthony Boucher. I’m sure a lot of editing would be required, though, but I think it would be worth it.
It would be fun to spend some months going through old book reviews from the 1950s-1980s and collecting the most interesting parts for a collection. But I suspect that almost nobody but me would be interested in such a thing.
P.S. The library had another book of Burgess’s previously uncollected essays–a collection prepared posthumously. I was surprised to find that I did not like these essays at all! The problem, I think, is that the editors tried to collect what seemed to them to be the most important of his works, which led to the inclusion of a lot of pretentious crap. I think Burgess’s workaday book reviews were much more interesting and judicious than these pieces where he had more freedom to say what he wanted.
I guess you might have read it already, but if not, you may also like the autobiography of Burgess. I found the first part (Little Wilson and Big God) the more interesting one, but the second part is also enjoyable.
Burgess famously was told once by his doctor that he had a year to live. So, to provide for his family after his death, he wrote five novels in one year, all published. He turned out to be perfectly healthy and went on to publish countless words.
It's been said that geniuses don't have better thoughts on average, they just have more thoughts, some of which then turn out to be better.