Peter Standish's Understanding Julio Cortazar admirably fulfils the task it sets itself, and offers much besides. It belongs to a series designed as a guide to the life and important works of prominent modern authors for undergraduate and graduate students and non-academic readers. Cortazar died in 1984 and his work has attracted a vast amount of critical attention from two distinct generations of readers, with a recent resurgence of interest and re-evaluation, some sophisticated and revealing, such as Dominic Moran, Questions of the Liminal in the Fiction of Julio Cortazar (Oxford: Legenda, 2000), other material openly hostile and dismissive. It was thus surely a daunting task to write a genuine introduction for possibly maiden readers, at the same time approach relatively untouched areas of his work, and combine a feeling of the excitement which the works originally provoked with the more sober perspective of hindsight. Benefiting from a long-term engagement with the work of the Argentinian, Standish strikes a commendable balance, writing what is in fact the only comprehensive study of the whole work of Cortazar. His coverage of the early published works, the relatively neglected early work posthumously published, the critical essays, the drama and poetry (until recently almost entirely neglected), and the crucial works involving other art forms, is particularly welcome.