The best living essayist writing in English

He's brilliant

Phillips radiates infectious charm

Reading Phillips, you may be amused, vexed, dazzled. But the one thing you will never be is bored

He is perhaps single-handedly continuing the tradition of the world's best essayists

Dip in or read cover to cover; five voices reflecting on great events, or single stories ... skilfully edited and intercut ... riveting and often moving book ... it is unrationed delight

Even in the most depressed post-war years, the Mass Observation diaries of nobodies are profound with the mysteries of the everyday ... This surreal crew are painfully real in their revealed ambiguities ... time has transformed their trivial entries into the sublime; their important days will always resonate

Poignant, compellingly edited ... what really grips are the characters themselves, whose daily entries have a poignancy usually found in only the most engaging of novels

There can be no better book than Our Hidden Lives ... Readers of other people's diaries will revel in this delicious book

Our Hidden Lives is a marvellous collection of diaries, written by five plain, ordinary - but exceptionally fascinating - individuals for Mass Observation ...These lively, frank records are nostalgic for those who lived through the times, but will be an eye opener for today's affluent and liberated generation of what life was like in that austere and straight-laced period

A fascinating treasure-trove of daily-life details which make the rigours and triumphs of this overlooked time come alive

Nothing less than a sharp snapshot of Britain's history

The year's most readable book, a rich trove of entertainment and instruction

Funny, moving, fascinating and utterly irresistible

It's riveting stuff

The extracts chosen work like the pieces of a mosaic to build a fascinating picture of everyday people and their lives in a time rarely written about

An engrossing account of post-war austerity

They evoke the poverty and harshness but also the hope and stoicism of those years immediately after the Second World War

The diary extracts achieve the narrative force of novel ... a window on the British temperament during a little-examined period of recent history ... Most engaging

A compelling picture of a vanished world

We, the readers, become engrossed in their stories and lives

A quiet but vivid account of an under-reported era of British life

These "everyday diaries" scotch the myth that history is only made by the famous or powerful ... Nobody can fail to be moved by the lives revealed here and the spirit of the diarists

Stitched together by Garfield's masterful editing, the entries create a beguiling snapshot of a period that has often been overshadowed

Richly textured diaries ... what really makes the book is the fresh light it sheds on the immediate post-war years ... it is history from the other end of the telescope - what life was like on the ground

I love these diaries. They have the attraction of being stories, but Real stories ... Better than any novel

A lovely book. It will appeal to ... anyone who appreciates the richness and diversity of human experience

Utterly engrossing, better than any kind of reality TV

Funny, vivid, touching, angry, thoughtful - every page is a delight. This is definitely No 1 on my present list to give to everyone in the coming year