Taylor writes with such skill and aplomb that it's impossible not to be swept along by the intelligence and observations

Shrewd and absorbing in his analysis of the way Waugh and Nancy Mitford promoted the world they would soon skewer in fiction

Moving and always entertaining

The depth and integrity of Taylor's research can only inspire awe and admiration.

D J Taylor's enthusiasm, delivered with the zeal of a recent convert, proves there is fascination even in empty living and that the Bright Young Brigade of the 1920s are just as worthy of a book or two as Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, Tamara Beckwith, Calum Best and all the flapping 'It-people' of our own generation

A spirited and nostalgic book...a giddy ride through a lost world of overindulgent gaiety and the next best thing to being at the parties oneself'

His fascinating study of hedonism, futility and fracture... a complex study of family, fear and breakdown

Timely... Nick Bunker has re-told an old story with aplomb, using a wealth of sources to capture the febrile mood of the time

Admirable

Elena Gorokhova doesn't use broad strokes to paint a picture of daily life in Brezhnev-era Soviet Union. Vivid memories, such as licking fresh raspberry jam out of a wooden bowl as her mother prepares food for the winter months, or the familiar, comforting scent of her father - tobacco and brown soap - brightly dot the harsh, gray background of everyday life in Gorokhova's native Leningrad. As Western culture peeks through cracks in the Iron Curtain in the 1960s and '70s, Gorokhova is determined to see what's on the other side and have new experiences, like eating "something called a shrimp." Her spare lyricism delicately captures a vanished world

A smart, spirited tale about growing up in the colorless Soviet Union

This moving memoir made me cry

Rich with honesty and insight . . . a stunning memoir: subtle, yet brimming with depth and detail. It leaves you wanting more

A Mountain of Crumbs is written above all with an almost painful tenderness that brought a lump to my throat more than once ... Gorokhova's memoir looks back with love at the lost world of the dacha, of mushroom-picking in the forest, and the utterly reassuring homeland contained within her mother's apple-print polyester dress. Her prose brims with an elegiac emotion and sensuality which even Turgenev, in his own European exile, might have envied

Combining Gorokhova's fantastic eye for an image with her acute sense for the absurd, A Mountain of Crumbs: growing Up Behind The Iron Curtain elegantly dramatises the bewildering chasm between the projected, glittering idealism of the Soviet Union and its drab, quotidian reality

An exquisitely moving memoir detailing Gorokhova's experiences of growing up behind the Iron Curtain. Her story of oppression and hope is described in distinctive poetical prose

Despite the specificity of the memoir, the themes and characters have universality - a domineering mother, a rebellious child, finding passion and beauty in the surprising places. A celebration of the triumph of the human spirit over adversity and oppression

In this gently delightful memoir, Elena Gorokhova recounts her coming of age in Russia during 1960s and 1970s ... There's a wonderful cosy intimacy to her writing; her use of the present tense keeps it fresh and unburdened ... I loved reading A Mountain of Crumbs. Gorokhova is a fine writer with a delicate, sensitive touch, whose voice in nonetheless fearless and clarion. I hope there's a sequel. After coming of age comes surely that other great memoir, coming to America

Her richly detailed story explores the reality of her politically subversive passions for language and freedom in a fearful, failing society that distrusted its citizens and repressed individuality

It takes talent to write a good memoir and Gorokhova has more than most. Fascinating anecdotes show us her mother's youth, and her own recollections spring to life with an artist's eye for those details that can conjure a mood or a moment. The privations, oppressions and joys are all described with shining curiosity in this captivating book

Gorokhova's beautiful understated portrait of her childhood ... her evocation of her formidable mother - who asks Stalin personally for funds for a maternity ward, and gets them - is among the memorable gems of her deceptively masterful tale

Aaronovitch painstakingly dissects these and some of the other great conspiracy theories of the age and demonstrates with merciless clarity what utter tripe they are.

A serious, entertaining and shocking investigation into the stuff that conspiracy theories are made of. Aaronovitch guides us through the half-truths and speculation and examines the distrust of officialdom which fuels conspiracists' imagination.

In its many-layered discoveries, the book is truly magnetic