A highly original approach to understanding what really makes economies tick. Both insightful and accessible to non-economists.

Davies visits economies pushed to the limit and examines what their response teaches us about resilience in the face of climate change, demographic shifts and state failure.

An exploration of the lessons to be drawn from disaster-stricken economies and imperilled (but innovative) people, which ranges from the jungles of Panama to post-tsunami Indonesia to the prison system of Louisiana and Syrian refugee camps.

Financial Times Best Books of 2019: Extreme Economies is a reflection on human resilience. The author takes you from a prison to a refugee camp to Kinshasa and Santiago to explain how economies work in extreme circumstances and why markets succeed or fail. Weaving economic theory and individual life stories, this is an important and enjoyable read.

We learn most about ourselves at times of extreme stress and challenge. Using nine compelling country case studies, Richard Davies brilliantly demonstrates that the same is true of our economic systems. In its approach and insights, Extreme Economies is a revelation - and a must-read.

Richard Davies balances economics with art, exposing the trade-offs made by people living today and forcing us to question the outcomes of our decisions.

Crisp and sensitive reporting from an extraordinary range of inaccessible places. As a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of markets versus planned economies, Extreme Economies is one of the most subtle and surprising I have read.

Extreme Economies makes sense of the forces shaping the future. Taken together, the books nine deep dives are a much needed reminder that an economy is not what happens when equations interact with data. An economy is what happens when people -- real people, people with names -- interact with people. Anyone who wants to learn economics, is learning economics, or pretends to know some economics should read this book.

Accessible and original. The author draws on sociology and anthropology and the simple power of observation and conversation to bring economics alive.

A fascinating book on economics in extremes. What happens when things go really wrong or are really different.

Exciting to see economics strike out into the real world showing how trauma and chaos can yield raw truths about markets, monopolies and the state.

Breathtaking. An entertaining, fascinating, important reminder of the power of economics to shape all of our lives.

A must read for anyone feeling desperate about the state of world affairs today, Extreme Economies demonstrates with vivid clarity and humanity how those in the most challenging situations can prosper. Many economists are quite narrow in their thinking about life’s challenges, this book beautifully demonstrates why the world’s most interesting places force us to think more openly.

Richard Davies obviously made the kind of road trip many of us only dream of to write Extreme Economies. I tore through it. An economist who can write so well while at the same time explaining the economic principles so clearly is always a joy.

Markets, Mr. Davies engagingly shows, can make an extreme situation less extreme . . . a compelling portrait of markets functioning?and sometimes malfunctioning?in all sorts of conditions and cultures

We can't forecast the coming decades, but it is enlightening to look at extreme economies for clues what we may be in store for. Davies book is fascinating.

Engagingly written and genuinely interesting… fascinating reportage. Davies dives into corners of the world you don’t hear much about and conveys, briefly and clearly, how they work. Simultaneously entertaining, informative and balanced.

A gimlet-eyed look at developments in the global economy, in which interesting and sometimes ominous things are happening. Highly recommended, sobering reading for anyone interested in the economic future, for good and bad.

Extreme Economies makes sense of the forces shaping the future by describing what people do when pushed to their limits. This strategy of going to extremes pays off spectacularly. Taken together, the book's nine deep dives are a much needed reminder that an economy is not what happens when equations interact with data. An economy is what is what happens when people -- real people, people with names -- interact. Anyone who wants to learn economics, is learning economics, or pretends to know some economics should read this book.

In each location, Davies keeps his perspective on broad, and often disturbing, historical trends while celebrating the resourcefulness of the individuals and communities he profiles. . . This ambitious and thought-provoking guide helps to make sense of the economic future.

[A] worthwhile lesson, today more than ever. Much of the evidence from Davies’s book, a bottom-up look at what happens when disaster strikes, is encouraging: before long, individuals rebuild themselves and their livelihoods. Fashionable as it is to do it down, capitalism is remarkably resilient.

This book is genuinely extraordinary

Life affirming [...] an enrapturing journey through darkness, destructive behaviour and an urgency for light and happiness now

A powerful memoir

Timely and highly original

Brilliant and moving

The Consequences of Love is undoubtedly one of this year's most hotly-anticipated books, and with good reason

Brilliantly written and heartbreaking but also joyful and uplifting

Extraordinary . . . profoundly moving

A brave, lyrical, painful tale of bereavement, addiction, and the building of a new life

Superbly written. Beautifully written and utterly heartbreaking. Courageous, inspired, bleakly comic, extreme candour

Searing

Hodge's beautiful memoir is both a devastating, grief-fuelled account of her sister's death and a redemptive tale of an emotional reckoning

It's a vivid and oddly entertaining memoir, a hand plunged into the dark hole of grief . . . uncovers surprising treasures - most importantly, strength, resilience and love

Searing. A masterful writer with a gift for storytelling. Her prose is rich with detail, combining a sharp sense of place with escalating drama. A triumph

The most moving, most exquisitely written book about addiction, grief, loss and coming to terms with trauma even decades on. One that you will be thinking about, and remember long after finishing

One of the most beautiful memoirs I've ever read. This story will say with you long after you put the book down

I just turned the last page (reluctantly!). A bold, often brutal exploration of memory, grief and love. Full of hope and heart. I can't recommend it enough

A brave, brilliant book that is both beautiful and important. Read it then buy it for all your friends

Gavanndra's memoir The Consequences of Love is absolutely beautiful. It's compelling, heartbreaking, sweet, honest, fascination. I recommend it HIGHLY. I absolutely LOVED it.

This stunning exploration of grief is so well written and profoundly moving

An elegant study of grief and memory

Hodge pours heartbreak and love into the pages of a book that never pretends to know the answers, and is all the better for it

An eye-opening snapshot of the fashion world in '90s London

The most important story, perfectly told

Memorable, urgent, eloquent ... Rebanks speaks with blunt, unmatched authority. He is also a fine writer with descriptive power and a gift for characterisation ... English Pastoral may be the most passionate ecological corrective since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring