Reading Wisdom of the Ancients is like putting on the finest headphones ever made. Here, cutting out the background noise of a society fevered by consumption and sensation...is a book that really makes you think and offers up the excitement of discovering things that when you read them make you fizz like understanding a foreign language you never realised you knew. This book is the equivalent of diving into a cool sea on a baking hot day, you emerge smiley and refreshed. I wish I had written this.

Neil Oliver writes beautifully - bringing the past to life and letting us see ourselves in a new light.

A fascinating fact-laden expedition through the ages. Oliver's erudition shines off every page.

London Clay by Tom Chivers, is perfect. He brings a poet's sensibility to this prose nonfiction book about the hidden parts of the capital, mixing the past with the present, the known with the unknown and his personal story with social history and geology.

[Chivers] combines the modern phenomenon of psycho-geographer with the ancient trade of poet ...
Action-packed, erudite... an audiobook to savour slowly.

London, investigated through the medium of psycho-geology, is revealed as a nexus of energies, interconnections, memories and resurrections. Tom Chivers, with the forensic eye of an investigator, the soul of a poet, is an engaging presence; a guide we would do well to follow.

We are none of us here for long. Our lives matter hugely and yet in the great scheme of things not at all. This book grapples with our predicament in an entirely original way. It's entertaining, enlightening and deeply moving. You will learn something about London and a good deal about life.

Gentle, all-observant Tom is the perfect guide for this exploration of London's nooks and crannies, places I thought I knew well and places I didn't even know existed. His beguiling mix of history, geology, folklore and memoir captivated me from the first page.

An absorbing and poetic psycho-geology of London ... an immersive deep trawl among the city's many layers, unearthing medieval Essex rebels, contemporary mudlarks of the lower Thames, lost rivers of silt and sewage, the Shard as Sauron's Dark Tower, and the existential angst of living in the Anthropocene epoch ... Fascinating.

A delightful narrative of the deep city...a multitude of revelations brought to light.

A seriously compelling book, full of powerful, overlooked history, supressed emotion - moving, entertaining and a significant addition to the London canon.

London re-enchanted. From the heart of the old city to the distant edgelands, London Clay is a wonderfully multi-layered meander through a landscape at once familiar and strange. A portrait of a haunted, mysterious city and a moving work of personal memoir.

Chivers traces London's hidden landscape armed only with his curiosity and a home-made geology map. His poet's knack of sensing unlikely connections makes this one of the most original books about the capital in years. Like Iain Sinclair with a trowel. Spellbinding.

This is London from the ground up, filled with a sense of wonderment at the strangeness of the city, from its earliest origins to the present day. 'London Clay' digs into the bedrock, soil, water and stone roots of London in a fascinating exploration that's part memoir, part geological survey.

London Clay is a gift of a book, one to give to yourself, to friends and those who have curious minds about what makes a city. It speaks to the urban explorer in us all providing a practical guide as well being filled with a plethora of great stories.

A lyrical meditation on landscapes and cities, vivid reportage and a memoir. And also a beautifully realised and moving read.

A delightful narrative of the deep city...a multitude of revelations brought to light.

One of the hottest books of the year ahead

Reading Oded Galor's upbeat book I...[was] taken aback by his imagination and verve... great sections of Galor's book are to be applauded... his optimism about humanity shines through

The Journey of Humanity is a good summary of growth theories and is an elegantly written and accessible book

Galor argues that climate policy should not be restricted to cutting carbon but should also involve "pushing hard for gender equality, access to education and the availability of contraceptives, to drive forward the decline in fertility". India will do well to heed that advice

The Journey of Humanity stretches from the emergence of Homo sapiens to the present day, and has a lot to say about the future, too. In just over 240 pages it covers our migration out of Africa, the development of agriculture, the Industrial Revolution and the phenomenal growth of the past two centuries. It takes in population change, the climate crisis and global inequality ... There will be inevitable comparisons with Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens ... If you need an evidence-based antidote to doomscrolling, here it is ... Galor builds his case meticulously, always testing his assumptions against the evidence, and without the sense of agenda-pushing that accompanies other boosterish thinkers - the Steven Pinkers or Francis Fukuyamas of this world

Incredibly wide-ranging and detailed historical and even anthropological examination of the myriad factors that have brought success and failure to nations ... Lively and learned

An optimist's guide to the future ... Oded Galor's 'Sapiens'-like history of civilisation predicts a happy ending for humanity

Enjoyable and intriguing

An antidote to doomscrolling

A great historical fresco

Breathtaking. A new Sapiens

Ambitious and deep ... the product of genuine scholarship