Ayres gives a wonderful account of what it was like to grow up poor but respectable in post-war rural England. Some of her writing in the early chapters, describing life as the youngest of six children in a council cottage in the Vale of White Horse, Berkshire, has the original freshness of classics such as Flora Thompson's Lark Rise to Candleford

I find her work sweet and sour, gentle and sad, and often very moving in its wistful way ... The descriptions of post-war Berkshire life in The Necessary Aptitude are wonderful ... The world Ayres evokes is Hardy's Wessex ... I do admire (and envy) this marvellous woman

Excellent ... Unsentimental, especially about herself, Ayres gives a surprisingly moving account of what it was like to grow up poor in rural England without any "aptitude" for making something of herself

Highly readable ... Pam's memoirs are a masterclass in effective and effervescent prose

An evocation of long-gone village life as captivating as Thompson’s Lark Rise to Candleford. At the book’s height, she reaches up and touches Laurie Lee

As funny and benevolent a memoir as you’d expect from one of Britain’s finest comic

It’s all so well written, so funny and so touching

Charming

Westerman’s tale, part historical journey, part travel tome, takes the reader across Europe to explore every avenue of the Lipizzaner’s eclectic history

The authors shred the myths in which Mao's national and international reputation rested... Jung Chang and John Halliday have done this extraordinary country a huge service with this book, which will one day be read as widely inside China as it will deservedly be in the outside world

A magisterial work... This magnificent biography methodically demolishes every pillar of Mao's claim to sympathy or legitimacy... A triumph

An important book in ways not envisaged... A work of unanswerable authority

Jung Chang and Jon Halliday enter a savage indictment drawing on a host of sources, including important Soviet ones, to blow away the miasma of deceit and ignorance which still shrouds Mao's life from many Western eyes... Jung Chang delivers a cry of anguish on behalf of all of those in her native land who, to this day, are still not free to speak of these things

Demonstrating the same pitilessness that they judge to be Mao's most formidable weapon, they unstitch the myths that sustained him in power for forty years and that continue to underpin China's regime... I suspect that when China comes to terms with its pastthis book will have played a role

Chilling... Impressive... An extremely compelling portrait of Mao that will still shock many

Decisive biography...they have investigated every aspect of his personal life and career, peeling back the layers of lies, myths, and what we used to think of as facts... What Chang and Halliday have done is immense and surpasses, as a biography, everything that has gone before

An irresistible, revelatory read

A riveting read

I thrilled to Sarah Wise’s Inconvenient People, an enthralling study of those who fell foul of Victorian mad-doctors and greedy relatives

It makes for a harrowing read, but much of it is also hilarious, and as gripping as the most lurid Victorian melodramatic novel. Yet again, one closes a book with the impression that beneath the polished mahogany surfaces and shimmering silks of Victorian interiors lurked Hell itself