Years ago, handwritten letters from publishers pushing their latest offering were a common occurence for me, and presumably lots of other reviewers. The doyen of this highly personal approach was Tony Colwell, Joe Simpson's editor at Jonathan Cape, who began his career in marketing and understood intimately how to cut through the avalanche of promotional material with a direct and proportionate approach. There was no gushing from Tony. The world has changed and the pressures on mainstream publishers are exponentially greater. But I got ...