Everyone involved is very smart, of course, but reading the TLS is a little like reading a political article in a trade paper, like the bar society magazines that I used to get free copies of as a student. The pieces themselves, though brightly lit, are largely unilluminating, offering at best a bit of schein, and the only useful things are generally the mentions of other things used to leaven the prose, either signalling erudition, or trying to send a worthwhile signal or two through the flames. Basically, reading for the offhand footnotes -- the small flickering things near the edges.
