Reviewer Bio: Benvenuto
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Benvenuto Cellini is the Florentine sculptor who, when the casting of his great statue of Perseus was going awry at the last, threw into it all his pewter kitchenware to enable it to flow more freely. Samuel Smiles describes him as "an Ishmael against whom, according to his own account, every man's hand was turned. But about his extraordinary skill as a workman, and his genius as an artist, there cannot be two opinions."

Benvenuto the reviewer reads widely in and out of genre, but not as much or as often as he would like. He is driven by curiosity and a wish for stimulation and diversion rather than by the search for excellence, and reviews books on the basis of how strongly he recommends them. He admires clever plotting and despises padding. He values style, dash and brio highly, but not as highly as character - a book without good characters is not a real book at all.