'This extraordinary book brings to life an astonishing place. Beautiful prose renders brutality vivid.'

So fluent, so textured is Jonathan Miles’s ease with prose and argument that his vivid dissection of 300 years of St Petersburg’s history should be devoured in captive sittings... Investigating the artistic life of St Petersburg, he also explores the melodrama and blood on the streets and the effects of continuing political disarray and corruption on ordinary people. This is a storyteller entranced with his subject, who makes its brilliant portrayal look deliriously easy.

[A] lively and entertaining biography... full of sparkling storytelling and well drawn characters... a delight.

Jonathan Miles’s cinematic telling of the 300-year history of ... St Petersburg shows how the drama, the absurdity, the splendour and the squalor of the imperial capital all found their way into Russia’s finest s, operas and paintings... Miles peels back the layers of myth in which the city is swaddled, while never losing sight of its haunting grace.

Recently there has been a plethora of new books on Russian history in all its guises, … so why more? Jonathan Miles’ narrative is a lot of more, … His history has a substantial foundation, but what makes it special is the sheer inescapable momentum of Miles’s prose, powered by the captivating intensity of his attachment to his subject. This is a story told by a writer enthralled – and disillusioned, as he sees no redemption in sight... A dazzling history of a dazzling city.

Many turbulent episodes richly brought to life in this panoramic study

Of all cities St Petersburg is most like a novel. Conceived in the mind of a Tsar like a writer might give birth to a book,it has never ceased to be relentlessly dramatic, as if being like a novel is its destiny. Miles tells the tale magnificently.

The prose comes alive... [in this] affectionate, readable portrait of a city.

Miles's affectionate history serves as a lively contribution to perceptions of the city’s allure... [revealing] the social and cultural life beneath the city’s “spiders’ webs of tramlines”.

[Miles] writes evocatively and sympathetically

Sensational and gripping . . . shedding light on some of the most urgent issues of our time

Luminous, elegant, haunting - I read it straight through

Deeply moving. Writes with an almost Sebaldian simplicity and understatement

Harrowing and beautiful

An awe-inspiring account of the tragedies and triumphs within the world of the Holocaust's "hide-away" children, and of the families who sheltered them

The Cut Out Girl is a reminder of the extraordinary richness of archives and the treasures released by scholarly research

An extraordinary story, harrowing, deeply affecting. This fascinating story is guaranteed to haunt you

A moving story of personal and family history, with a scholar's objective eye for the bigger picture.

Harrowing . . . profoundly moving

Satisfyingly detailed, yet with a convincing overarching thesis.

[Heffer] has really excelled himself with this epic study of Britain in the years before the First World War. Majestic in its scope, meticulous in its scholarship, compelling in its thesis and stylish in its prose, his heavyweight book challenges the familiar historical tale of confidence and swagger and presents the age in a more complex, sombre light . . . The author has done an extraordinary amount of research, unearthing a wealth of new material from archives. . . . It is impossible to read this magnificent work without gaining a deep new understanding of a unique and troubled age.

[One of] the best historical books to gift others this Christmas.

Heffer has turned himself into one of Britain’s most accomplished and formidable men of letters . . . Heffer is a genuine intellectual with a shelf of books to his credit.

An epic survey . . . Simon Heffer’s intricately detailed account ends with Britain diminished and on the brink of catastrophe.

London's Big Read wants to get the capital talking about [Brit(ish)] ... a personal and provocative exploration of British history, race, identity and belonging.

Afua Hirsch's new book uses the personal and political to take a good look at what it's like to be a person of colour here, now. Here's where you'll get an insight into what it means to be a mixed race and univocally British, yet continuously plagued with the question 'but where are you really from?'

An excellent read.

[A] personal and admirably honest account of her journey towards self-realisation as a woman of colour.

A fascinating...deeply intelligent, witty and often moving exploration of race in modern Britain

Afua Hirsch's first book, Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging, was published to wide acclaim at the start of 2018. She looks at the many, multi-faceted questions that surround identity - both on a personal and societal scale - to pen a thought-provoking read.

It is a life-shaping read.

Brit(ish) stands out from a crop of books on growing up mixed race in 70s Britain.

Brit(ish) is an essential read for all. Hirsch's exploration of her identity brings to light the difficulties of growing up as mixed-race and black in Britain. She also challenges the British perception of race, and how our inability to confront our past has profoundly affected our ability to coherently understand and discuss race in our present. Brit(ish) is a call to action, if we genuinely want to progress as a society, we must change our discussions and understanding of race.

A personal, political and challenging account of what it means to be British when you are racialised as Black. Hirsch is a brilliant and fearless intellect who deftly handles the complexity of the issues