Intelligent, well-written, informative and funny…A book to chew on, dip into, quote from and exploit in arguments

Bursting with good things

The scope of his book, and the skill with which he handles generally unreliable sources, is impressive...The accounts of the circumnavigation, the attack on Cadiz and the defeat of the Armada are a comprehensive, and as readable, as any that have yet appeared

A great little book about the British obsession with the climate, it's full of fruitful parcels of meteorological lore.

... The writing possesses an affable charm and Fort has an appealing layman's enthusiasm for the subject.

An entertaining but rigorous antidote to the fast-and-loose-with-the-truth approach.

Wonderfully engaging...Tinniswood has brought the Verneys to life in robustly vivid style

A wonderful group portrait of an eccentric and ill-starred dynasty. Expertly handling the humorous words and unwise deeds of several generations of Verneys, Adrian Tinniswood breathes life into the turbulent history of an entire century

Adrian Tinniswood's The Verneys takes us on a fascinating grand tour through a world turned upside down. It is an intimate, engaging, and richly rewarding book, showing the seventeenth century in all its splendor and brutality

How eloquently Mak rails against the alliance of consumerism and bureaucracy! ... He has a great eye for telling detail... Only a powerful, humane and serious mind could give coherence to mass detail which, however arresting piece by piece, would otherwise soon become wearying... as much a journey around Geert Mak's head as it is a journey around Europe

Fascinating