Michael Wood is Charles Barnwell Start Professor of English and Professor of Comparative Literature, Princeton University. He has published many books including <i>America in the Movies</i> (Basic Books and Secker & Warburg, 1975), <i>The Magician's Doubts: Nabokov and the risks of fiction</i> (Chatto and Windus, 1994); <i>Belle de Jour</i> ( BFI Film Classics, British Film Institute Publishing, 2001); and <i>The Road to Delphi: the Life and Afterlife of Oracles</i> (Chatto & Windus, 2004).