As rich and meandering and wonderful as its subject, this is one of the books of the year

Mesmerising... No one is better than Ackroyd at evoking the texture and atmosphere of the distant past... Ackroyd's gift is to write history in the idiom of a poet. As soon as you open this account of the Thames, you will want to immerse yourself in it

A beautifully produced book... There is so much to enjoy here

Wonderful. He is comprehensive - everything from mammoths to the Dome is here - but he is also playful and eccentric, so that reading this book is like being in a boat on the river itself... Peter Ackroyd's writing is such a pleasure that Thames: Sacred River can be read all at once, with increasing delight, and afterwards dipped into, like stretches of the great waterway it charts and celebrates

A very enjoyable and highly idiosyncratic account of the subject

His exhaustive reclaiming of the Thames inks in colourful new detail

A handsome book... hours of contentment for the armchair boatman...the range of information is impressive

Ackroyd is a great visionary, able to concertina the present into the past, and vice versa

An imaginative history of the river with an eclectic cast

It seems the most perfect gift

Fascinating, gossipy and occasionally hilarious