Gossipy journalists, revolutionary poets, political novelists and influential professors: take a tour of twentieth century literary culture.      The book DJ Taylor was born to write: award-winning literary biographer (won Whitbread Prize for biography of George Orwell), esteemed journalist and novelist (longlisted for Booker for Derby Day) is the expert on 20th century literary culture: he's lived and worked through half of it!      Gossipy and entertaining: a fantastic read, full of juicy details and hilarious anecdotes about the great minds of the twentieth century.       Insight into our world: shines a light on readers, writers, publishers, booksellers, magazine editors - and holds them up for scrutiny. D. J. TAYLOR's novels include  English Settlement , which won a Grinzane Cavour Prize,  Trespass  and  Derby Day , both of which were long-listed for the Man Booker Prize, and  Kept: A Victorian Mystery . His other books include  After the War: The Novel and England Since 1945, Thackeray, Orwell: The Life,  which won the 2003 Whitbread Biography Prize, and  Bright Young People: The Rise and Fall of a Generation 1918-1940 . He lives in Norwich with his wife, the novelist Rachel Hore, and their three sons.