The Voice shines on

Frank Sinatra Has A Cold and Other Essays

The plaudit served as a long-overdue acknowledgement of one of America’s premier post-war prose stylists but was actually unnecessary. With great journalism, and particularly with the masterly Talese, the story is everything, with no need for hyperbole.

Now, as if setting proof to paper, Penguin Modern Classics have distilled 35 years of hard work and fine craft into a slender nine-essay collection, one which will easily rank among the year’s finest writing, genre be damned.