SOURCE: A review of An Artificial Wilderness, in Los Angeles Times Book Review, August 30, 1987, p. 4.

In the following review of An Artificial Wilderness, Miles admires the range of Birkerts's literary knowledge.

This is too cruel, but I will do it. One of the books reviewed in this collection of Sven Birkerts's book reviews and other short essays is a similar collection by George Steiner, of which Birkerts writes: "When I heard that Oxford University Press was issuing George Steiner: A Reader (1984), I was distressed to see that venerable old house giving in to the bonbon sampler trend—and shocked to find Steiner a party to the deed." Obviously, Birkerts has been party to just such a deed at Morrow; but readers who have been reading and enjoying his work here and there without knowing anything about him will not be distressed.

Birkerts, we learn in the introduction to...