With superb investigative skill and a delightfully light-hearted writing style, Spinney extends her analysis far beyond the relatively short duration of the plague... I’ve seldom had so much fun reading about people dying.

Weaves together global history and medical science to great effect ... Riveting.

Both a saga of tragedies and a detective story... Pale Rider is not just an excavation but a reimagining of the past.

Vividly recreated, grimly fascinating… Coolly, crisply and with a consistently sharp eye for the telling anecdote, Spinney ... demonstrates how the Spanish flu cast a long shadow over the 20th century.

Magisterial.

Impressive... packed with fascinating, quirky detail... As the centenary of this monumental event approaches, other volumes on the pandemic will undoubtedly appear. Pale Rider sets the bar very high.

Influenza, like all viruses, is a parasite. Laura Spinney traces its long shadow over human history… In Europe and North America the first world war killed more than Spanish flu; everywhere else the reverse is true. Yet most narratives focus on the West… Ms Spinney’s book goes some way to redress the balance.

Laura Spinney provides a vivid account of the medical mysteries surrounding this exceptionally lethal disease and its long-term consequences. The main fascination of her wonderfully absorbing book lies in its international comparisons, reinforced by harrowing narratives of personal experiences… Pale Rider offers an important if unsettling reminder that stories about epidemics cannot be safely relegated to the past.

Engaging, delivering the necessary science in the tone of a trendy lecturer who is chatty and informal but always authoritative… The post-war world created treaties, organisations and protest groups to prevent global conflict recurring, yet the century’s biggest killer may have been something else entirely. This fascinating, frightening book will begin to redress that dangerous historical imbalance.

Spinney, an admired science journalist, conjures the drama of the Spanish flu… Pale Rider is not just an excavation but a reimagining of the past… The renowned virologist John Oxford concurs: “H1N1 has a proven capacity to kill,” he says, “and we don’t need to be sitting here taking it like they did in 1918.” Spinney has ably lent her pen to the cause.

Spinney’s book provides a masterful account of the possible origins, spread and cultural consequences of this modern-day plague. Especially interesting are the context-providing sections on humanity’s millennia-old encounter with flu and on the frantic, flawed, attempts to understand the science behind the outbreak.

No one has yet to take as wide-sweeping an approach as Laura Spinney does in her new book, Pale Rider. Spinney…is a storyteller with a science writer’s cabinet of facts.

[T]he best modern account of the Spanish Flu crisis

A terrific, sweeping account of something that’s much more important than most people think

An engrossing, elegant timeline of the cosmos. . . Mack sprinkles in delightful esoterica along the way, while providing a guide to some of the most plausible scenarios about the end of the universe

Mack is a great science communicator and I suspected I was going to like this book as soon as I saw her name. I am pleased to say it does not disappoint

Mack creates an accessible, easy-to-digest guide to how the universe might end, speaking in a casual way that feels like sitting down for coffee with a good friend - one who can break down the physics of destruction into bite-sized delights

Excellent, far-reaching... the perfect antidote to the malaise of mundane worries

I found it helpful -- not reassuring, certainly, but mind-expanding -- to be reminded of our place in a vast cosmos.

Having a great time enjoying The End of Everything. A mind blowing book. I got mine on Kindle as I need to underline particularly mind boggling ideas. Why not join me?

A joy . . . a captivating trip into the weird and wonderful mycorrhizal world around us - and inside us . . . full of startling revelations

The oddest and most uplifting book . . . It is, to say the least, rare to find such a vast area of life on Earth - fungi - about which one knows almost nothing, and which gives promise of being so important to human life during our next century

If you had told me a book about fungi would be both enthralling and completely mind-blowing, I wouldn't have believed you. And yet. Dazzlingly good

A triumph and a thing of vast beauty

Fungi are everywhere, and Merlin Sheldrake is an ideal guide to their mysteries. He's passionate, deeply knowledgeable and a wonderful writer

Deeply engaging and constantly surprising . . . the magic of mushrooms is not merely mind-expanding . . . it might expand the very concept of mind

As hard to put down as a thrilling detective novel, and one of the best works of popular science writing that I have enjoyed in years

It is impossible to put this book down. Entangled Life provides a window into the mind-boggling biology and fascinating cultures surrounding fungal life, as well as fungi’s innumerable uses in materials, medicine and ecology. Sheldrake asks us to consider a life-form that is radically alien to ours, yet vibrant and lively underfoot

This is not just for mushroom-heads - it is science at its most uplifting

Playful, strange, intensely philosophical ... Until very recently, human knowledge of this most mysterious lifeform, neither plant nor animal, has been extremely limited. This is astounding, given ... their seismic impact on life on earth ... [Sheldrake's] central vision of the interconnectedness of all life-forms feels shiveringly prescient'

Superbly written. Beautifully written and utterly heartbreaking. Courageous, inspired, bleakly comic, extreme candour

Searing

Hodge's beautiful memoir is both a devastating, grief-fuelled account of her sister's death and a redemptive tale of an emotional reckoning

It's a vivid and oddly entertaining memoir, a hand plunged into the dark hole of grief . . . uncovers surprising treasures - most importantly, strength, resilience and love

Searing. A masterful writer with a gift for storytelling. Her prose is rich with detail, combining a sharp sense of place with escalating drama. A triumph

The most moving, most exquisitely written book about addiction, grief, loss and coming to terms with trauma even decades on. One that you will be thinking about, and remember long after finishing

One of the most beautiful memoirs I've ever read. This story will say with you long after you put the book down

I just turned the last page (reluctantly!). A bold, often brutal exploration of memory, grief and love. Full of hope and heart. I can't recommend it enough

A brave, brilliant book that is both beautiful and important. Read it then buy it for all your friends

Gavanndra's memoir The Consequences of Love is absolutely beautiful. It's compelling, heartbreaking, sweet, honest, fascination. I recommend it HIGHLY. I absolutely LOVED it.

This stunning exploration of grief is so well written and profoundly moving

An elegant study of grief and memory

Hodge pours heartbreak and love into the pages of a book that never pretends to know the answers, and is all the better for it

An eye-opening snapshot of the fashion world in '90s London

The most important story, perfectly told

Memorable, urgent, eloquent ... Rebanks speaks with blunt, unmatched authority. He is also a fine writer with descriptive power and a gift for characterisation ... English Pastoral may be the most passionate ecological corrective since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring