A blackly comic gallop round pragmatic parenthood, instantly recognizable by anyone who’s been through the mill themselves

A look at the weird, wonderful and sometimes weary world of parenting. Brutally honest

I love this book! At last someone has finally written what every parent is feeling within - both the highs and the lows

It sounds like common sense: after all, would you want to be strapped into a high chair and force-fed spoon after spoon of bland vegetables? It's surely much more exciting to be able to exercise a bit of control over your diet

[Baby-led weaning] could radically simplify infant feeding

Superbly written; poetic in the best sense, summoning up a world of terror and beauty

This account of a failed father-son relationship is written with extraordinary beauty and insight... His is a profound meditation on the life of the spirit, and the shadows we all carry in our hearts

Marvellously written scenes...few people write more hauntingly... His prose has a poet's delicacy and fine-honed precision

Anyone who has read Gosse, Ackerley or Tobias Wolff will know that big books can be made about small-time fathers. It's a tribute to Burnside that he maps this same territory and prompts these comparisons while creating a story that is uniquely his

This is a haunting read that will linger long after you close the pages of this book