Reading it is like participating in a hugely enjoyable personal tutorial given by a cultured, witty, clear-eyed, world teacher with a fully functioning sense of humour. A real delight

Hook's view of the art world is that of the professional auctioneer. In an A-Z format, it is an entire art education contained in under 350 pages. Wry, dry and completely beguiling

An auctioneer's alphabet of quirky reflections and off-beat lists such as 'middle-brow artists' and 'fictional artists': an ideal volume for the art-lover's bedside

How to nail the mad, bad, crazy contemporary art world in print? Sotheby's senior director Hook draws on 35 years' experience in this informal memoir. He unravels, with humour, piquancy and erudition, what drives the economics of taste

It's very hard to write an amusing book about art that has some serious things to say. But Philip Hook has done it. It's more a kind of Lonely Planet guide, written from the perspective of an auctioneer. In places it's a hoot, but it's also very wise here and there, and refreshingly irreverent. Sir William Russell Flint, for example, "painted like Augustus John commissioned by Playboy magazine"

His delightful Breakfast at Sotheby's is a house sale of a book, a chance for him to clear out 35 years of memories as an art dealer and auctioneer, first at Christie's and then Sotheby's, a rival auction house. Besides the colourful stories, Mr Hook offers various theories about the art world, and keen insight on that vexing question of what gives art value. Amid the well-known answers (provenance, colour, "wall power") are some less obvious observations, both relevant and delightful

Hicks' enchantment with the tapestry is compelling and her style confident and writerly

A beguiling study

Ranging from Scorsese to soufflé Schama is a damn marvel

Lively and provocative... This book is a delight

Richardson, a magisterial writer, brilliant critic and deliriously funny raconteur, is a unique, dazzling match for his subject

A colossal undertaking that has taken almost his whole life and will enrich yours forever

[It] will be on many an art lover's Christmas list this year.

Fond and faintly disturbing.

A rattlingly readable effort... Greig does a fine job revealing tales one suspects the artist may have wished to keep private.

Anybody with an ear for a good story, never mind an eye for fine art, will be beguiled.

Greig's fascinating, intimate biography of Lucian Freud was a revelation. Every question I had about Freud – from the aesthetic to the intrusively gossipy – was answered with great candour and judiciousness… Wry, dry and completely beguiling.

[Greig’s] perceptive observations and eagle’s eye for detail immediately drew me in.

The Freud who emerges in this account is a slippery figure, not only for journalists who tried to explain him but also for his intimates.

Mr Greig's is a compelling portrait of a complete amoralist who became a monstre sacré.

Greig’s portrait glimmers with his eye for the telling detail.

A mesmerising book, seamlessly crafted, totally absorbing, and impossible to put down.

A very readable and enjoyable book, full of salacious detail of the artist and his fascinating life.

This intimate biography of Lucian Freud spares no blushes in its account of one of Britain's greatest painters, tracing his life and work through candid revelations about his views on art, relationships and family.

Building up brush stroke by brush stroke, Greig has produced a three-dimensional study of equal candour. Part demon, part genius, it is an absorbing portrait of the complexity of a strange human character.

An unapologetic mixture of intelligent perception and high gossip... It is, overall, more revealing than anything about [Freud] yet written.

I am captivated by this fascinating memoir... It's an extraordinary read.

Candid and intelligent.

A gripping, page-turning vision of Lucian Freud that penetrates deep into the artist's private life.

Utterly engrossing and lavishly illustrated