Bloomsbury Reviewed

In the end, excellent achievements are probably only as lasting as the coffee-table books they can be whittled to fit. Because there, sooner or later, they will come to rest. Bloomsbury Reflections (W. W. Norton) is a case in point. This collection of interviews and photographs perpetuates the lore of that famously brilliant soiree set—Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Clive and Vanessa Bell, John Maynard Keynes, Lytton Strachey, Duncan Grant, and others—by capitalizing on the odd and compelling premise that their progeny are as interesting as they were. Children, grandchildren, nephews, and nieces speak openly and intelligently to author Sue Allison about the vocations and sexual permutations of their forebears. But, as with any coffee-table book, the main thing here isn't what the subjects say but how they photograph—which, in the capable hands of Alen MacWeeney, is wonderfully. The pictures are as sumptuous as a Duncan Grant painting, as riveting as a sharp line of Virginia Woolf. They are even good enough to wind up.. .well, on a coffee table.

JIM RASENBERGER