A meditative tale of unrequited love... De Kretser's writing is by turns poetic, metaphorical and delicately elliptical, capable of evoking a mood or change in direction in the subtlest of ways

Beautifully written, full of wit, pathos and evocative images... There is a great deal to enjoy in this book. It opens magnificently... her final pages are a triumph

Kretser's native style is clear, vigorous, sensitive to mood and cadence, and strongly narrative

De Kretser is an elegant and accomplished storyteller

A winner...enquiring and thoughtful

Westerman’s account of the Lipizzaners’ remarkable survival makes stirring reading. His tales of research in secret archives and encounters with wartime veterans who helped with Operation Cowboy have the subterfuge and tension of a thriller

Fascinating

Westerman offers a reflective account of man’s obsession with the prized Lipizzaner horse

Westerman’s tale, part historical journey, part travel tome, takes the reader across Europe to explore every avenue of the Lipizzaner’s eclectic history

The authors shred the myths in which Mao's national and international reputation rested... Jung Chang and John Halliday have done this extraordinary country a huge service with this book, which will one day be read as widely inside China as it will deservedly be in the outside world

A magisterial work... This magnificent biography methodically demolishes every pillar of Mao's claim to sympathy or legitimacy... A triumph

An important book in ways not envisaged... A work of unanswerable authority

Jung Chang and Jon Halliday enter a savage indictment drawing on a host of sources, including important Soviet ones, to blow away the miasma of deceit and ignorance which still shrouds Mao's life from many Western eyes... Jung Chang delivers a cry of anguish on behalf of all of those in her native land who, to this day, are still not free to speak of these things

Demonstrating the same pitilessness that they judge to be Mao's most formidable weapon, they unstitch the myths that sustained him in power for forty years and that continue to underpin China's regime... I suspect that when China comes to terms with its pastthis book will have played a role

Chilling... Impressive... An extremely compelling portrait of Mao that will still shock many

Decisive biography...they have investigated every aspect of his personal life and career, peeling back the layers of lies, myths, and what we used to think of as facts... What Chang and Halliday have done is immense and surpasses, as a biography, everything that has gone before

An irresistible, revelatory read

A riveting read

I thrilled to Sarah Wise’s Inconvenient People, an enthralling study of those who fell foul of Victorian mad-doctors and greedy relatives

It makes for a harrowing read, but much of it is also hilarious, and as gripping as the most lurid Victorian melodramatic novel. Yet again, one closes a book with the impression that beneath the polished mahogany surfaces and shimmering silks of Victorian interiors lurked Hell itself