Lookback: how I became a critic

From 2004:

A reader wrote to ask if I'd consider posting a list of books and other works of art that had served as "turning points" in my life as a critic. I've never drawn up such a list, though I once wrote an essay for the New York Times Book Review called "I've Got a Crush on You" (it's in A Terry Teachout Reader) in which I talked about several authors whose styles I'd emulated at different times in my life. But what gave me the idea to become a critic--and what inspired me to become the kind of critic I became?...

Read the whole thing here .