The latest instalment in one of the most extraordinary oeuvres in writing about space and form, and a welcome antidote to the pre-industrial phantasmagoria of the new monarch

Owen Hatherley, long an eloquent proselytiser for municipal Modernism, has produced a new Britannica for our era of reassessment... Hatherley has superbly documented a moment in which we are rapidly losing what many have only just learnt to appreciate

It is an addictive book to dip in and out of, to open at random to learn something new. ... an approachable guide... Hatherley's introduction is possibly the most lucid and concise history of modern architecture in Britain you will find anywhere

Insightful and inspiring... One of its strengths is the devotion and persistence with which Owen Hatherley has sought out gems across the country... [A] phenomenal work of gathering and observation

Owen Hatherley is something of a phenomenon... Hatherley is a "béton brut" Ruskin for the twenty-first century... The book is a triumph and a thrill ride. A great big doorstopper, it is a classy production generally, generously illustrated with Chris Matthews's superb photography... The historical overview in the introduction is a masterpiece of lucid, pithy explication'

A weighty, glossy gazetteer of the most significant British modernist buildings... Packed with pleasurable details... [Hatherley] is trenchant, never fawning; a provocateur, and a good one - and more entertaining than Nicholas Pevsner... He writes glorious contextual critiques... Emotional and affecting

A masterpiece. A book that distills an accumulated life's work of thinking, seeing and writing

Swashbuckling... A very considerable achievement... Being a gazetteer, this is a book to dip in and out of, and you will keep dipping in and out, it's an addictive process that is made easy to navigate

The best blueprint for understanding Britain's modern architecture... An erudite and informative new classic ... a book that is colossal in ambition, range, and achievement

A book that will get you excited about architecture

Those with more than a passing interest in modernism will have great fun planning excursions with the help of the book's geographically arranged chapters

Hatherley's urban perambulations are in the great tradition of some of the best writers on architecture and design... Over 600 pages, our author and guide present us with a very personal selection, seeking out the diamonds in the rough and finding just the right pithy observations to praise the unusual, while damning the neglect, philistinism, and opposition that often comes with the territory

A gorgeous treat... Hatherley is a flâneur with a cause. He incites his readers to engage, as he does, with what is
around them, no matter how banal it may appear at first glance, and to take nothing for granted

Strange, engrossing…superbly illustrated.

Craske remains as private a man as before…but Blackburn’s eloquent appreciation of his work and her sympathy with his sorrows make this remarkable book the best tribute he could have received.

Her most glittering book to date.

This is biography with a difference.

Compelling and beautifully written.

My favourite book of the year.

It is hard to tell whether this is a simple or a complicated book: its power lies in its being both.

I don’t know of many books that give a better sense of the frustrations and excitement of research.

The energy is infectious, but the tone is melancholic.

Blackburn captures the understated artist John Craske with elegance and precision.

A vibrant account of the life of Norfolk fisherman John Craske […] another maverick choice of subject by this always compelling writer.

Outsider art requires outsider biography, and Blackburn, an expert in finding new forms to fit odd lives, has managed her task magnificently.

Beautifully delicate.

Richly satisfying.

A gorgeous, dreamy quest, for a man named John Craske.

The book has an understated charm and is a beautifully rendered portrait of an artist’s life and landscape.

This tender biography is gossipy and philosophical by turns.

Executed with undeniable skill and the sense of an intimate acquaintance with life on the open seas.

Unusually moving.