Author:Steve Blake & Scott Lloyd
Avalon is Britain's very own Atlantis - a mystical kingdom rich in myth and lore. Legends tell how the body of King Arthur was taken to Avalon, where he would wait till his nation's hour of need -The truth is that Avalon was a very real place with a turbulent history of its own. In The Keys to Avalon, the authors use neglected ancient sources, geographical clues and modern maps to take us to the heart of this realm. They uncover a remarkable landscape steeped in evidence of a bygone age. En route, they debunk the claims of other places to the name of Avalon, and literally redraw the map of Dark Age Britain, forcing us to re-examine all of our theories about this era. Ultimately, they reveal the kernel of historical truth at the heart of the Arthurian legend and unlock the borders of a lost land.
A journey into our own psyche ... Tim Pat Coogan has dug, Heaney-like, into the past while opening doors to faraway places
—— Frank McCourtIt is the result of great energy, imagination and painstaking detective work ... It is a big book on a big topic. Don't just read it. Buy it and reread it
—— Irish TimesVividly painted - A tour de force, delivered in Tim Pat Coogan's inimitable style
—— Ireland on SundayBrimming with life, colour, and yes, facts too
—— Daily TelegraphHoffman asks many questions, bringing a voice of reason to the irrational, reaching out for reconciliation
—— Sunday Times'Man is an excellent guide...well-versed in Mongolian, he has travelled extensively in the country while researching the more mysterious elements Genghis' life, and this experience shines through the book...he writes knowledgeably'
—— Literary ReviewA top biography...This is great, grisly stuff and an education for anyone
—— Evening Standard... This bright, engaging and breezy book ... suits the tenor of our times.
—— The TimesA remarkable feat of documentary detail and novelistic vividness...an unfolding literary event
—— New York Times Book ReviewThe Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler's Europe, and his son, a cartoonist coming to terms with his father's story. Maus approaches the unspeakable through the diminutive. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), shocks us out of any lingering sense of familiarity and succeeds in 'drawing us closer to the bleak heart of the Holocaust'
—— New York TimesA quiet triumph, moving and simple - impossible to describe accurately, and impossible to achieve in any medium but comics
—— Washington PostAll too infrequently, a book comes along that' s as daring as it is acclaimed. Art Spiegelman's Maus is just such a book
—— EsquireA remarkable work, awesome in its conception and execution... at one and the same time a novel, a documentary, a memoir, and a comic book. Brilliant, just brilliant
—— Jules FeifferMaus is a masterpiece, and it's in the nature of such things to generate mysteries, and pose more questions than they answer. But if the notion of a canon means anything, Maus is there at the heart of it. Like all great stories, it tells us more about ourselves than we could ever suspect
—— Philip PullmanSpiegelman's Maus changed comics forever. Comics now can be about anything
—— Alison BechdelReading [his work] has been an amazing lesson in storytelling
—— Etgar KeretIt can be easy to forget how much of a game-changer Maus was.
—— Washington Post