Readers will delight in de Hamel's passion for his subject, his book's sumptuous illustrations, and above all his virtuoso display of learning

De Hamel - author of the wonderful Meetings With Remarkable Manuscripts - shows us all the tools of the bibliographer's trade: dating handwriting, identifying pigments, noting the rust marks left by nails from a now-lost ornate binding ... The identification - or rehabilitation - of his psalter, the book he carried with him into exile, possibly held at his death, is a timely and enjoyable tribute.

Christopher de Hamel quotes Sherlock Holmes, as he might, in his latest bit of medieval detective work, showing that a book of the Psalms in a Cambridge college was once a treasured possession of St Thomas Becket ... grippingly told in The Book in the Cathedral.

Subtle prose that mingles empathy with perspective.

Humanity glitters under her gaze in all its facets. Her prose is spectacularly good and her storytelling is a joy.

A laudable attempt to record an endangered region and a disappearing way of life.

Exceptional.

This is a book to make you feel.

In her captivating latest, Kassabova transports us to the Mesta River in her native Bulgaria... Kassabova finds hope that this ancient knowledge still has the power to heal us.

Extraordinary... She allows her book to grow and swell, like a symphony, expanding and deepening its themes until the traditional wisdom and life of the mountain envelopes you entirely. Rather like a spell, in fact.

It soars with the luminous prose and unflinching honesty we have come to expect from this brilliantly gifted writer. Elixir is an extraordinary, profoundly moving book... Her prose is breathtaking, the stories heartbreaking.

A joyous celebration of the Pomak community in southern Bulgaria.