A gripping, argument-led history ... dazzling ... here, at last, is a work that places the current crisis in a longer history of seismic shifts in the balance of social power

Stimulating ... In illustrating these larger processes of caste conflict and caste collaboration, the author offers crisp portraits of entrepreneurs, economists and warriors ... Sparkling prose and ... arresting comparisons

Concise but extremely ambitious ... well worth pondering and reflecting on ... among the many contributions to the dissection of our current predicament, this is surely one of the most thought-provoking

Lively and opinionated

An intriguing way of analysing society ... This is a refreshing description of society, and a thought-provoking one ... it a real attempt to break out of established ways of thinking, and should be applauded

Diverting and provocative

Very readable ... [Priestland's] studies of Communism have given him an enviable grasp of 19th- and 20th-century developments across the globe, and he writes with such verve ... Priestland casts an intriguing glimmer of light on what may be ahead

An absorbing read.

This is an important book, drawing attention to a period in China's history that has received little, and usually only negative, attention. Chang writes with verve, energy and evident concern for the country in which her books are proscribed and her family was made to suffer during the Cultural Revolution.

Fascinating… A depiction of the birth of modern China and an intimate portrait of a woman, this is history writing at its best

A beautifully narrated biography… Chang has a wonderful eye for the telling detail

Groundbreaking.

Chang turns the harridan into a heroine.

Filled with new revelations… Gripping and surprising… Powerful.

Absorbing… Chang has a novelist’s eye for small detail… Chang weaves a suspenseful, anecdote-laden tale.

One of those rare non-fiction books that reads like a novel without compromising the quality of research – we couldn’t put it down

One of the most important authors of our age, in that she has shown China to the world.

This is an electrifying description of the birth of modern China and an intimate portrait of an extraordinary woman

Chinese political history can be a tough nut to crack, but Chang weaves in and out of Cixi’s biography with an ease that is almost as astounding as the events themselves

A tantalisingly original perspective of the Second World War…Shakespeare shines a moving, intriguing light on the moral quandaries faced by ordinary civilians

Priscilla is an unusual book, part biography, part family memoir, part detective story, but it reads like a novel and I found it impossible to put down. As an evocation of the period and the moral hypocrisy of the times, it could hardly be bettered (4 stars, Book of the Week)

The novelist and biographer relates the extraordinary wartime derring-doings of his glamorous aunt, whose hidden past he discovered when he stumbled across a box of her papers. Glamorous and morally ambiguous, she married a French aristocrat, escaped from a PoW camp and at the liberation of Paris, was having a relationship with a mysterious man called “Otto”. Woven into her life story is a wealth of detail about life in Occupied France. Obvious appeal for fans of Agent Zigzag, Antony Beevor and Sebastian Faulks but also Suite Française. I was enthralled by it

Assiduous archival research is blended with the flair and craft of an acclaimed novelist

A tender account of one woman's unpredictable, secretive and self-scarring wartime experiences... [Shakespeare is] a gifted novelist and biographer

An excellently researched, beautifully written and unflinching memoir

Gripping

The incredible story of the author's aunt, a young English woman in France during the Nazi occupation

Nicholas's research provides Priscilla with a full identity as a young, vulnerable woman whose heroism lay in being true to herself in terrifying times

As both a biographer and novelist, [Shakespeare] is admirably placed to tell such a curious but utterly compelling story

A story as haunting and improbable as any of the fictions of Modiano... Gripping

This is both a family memoir and meticulously researched historical account of the dangerous world of Nazi-occupied France... Shakespeare perfectly captures the perilous and precarious atmosphere, and provides insight into the complexity of women's lives at that time

A captivating travelogue.

A delightfully heady and beautifully written potpourri of a book.

A fascinating look at the debt we owe to Roman achievements

A fascination exploration

Highly readable but profoundly researched, The Trigger represents a bold exception to the deluge of First World War books devoted to mud, blood and poetry

a fascinating original portrait of a man and his country