Others have shown the disenchantment of war, have unlegended the roselight and romance of it, but none with such compassion for the disenchanted or such sternly just and justly stern judgment on the idyllisers.

For me, he is the greatest of all the war poets.... it is Owen's intense respect for the soldier that makes his poetry so powerful. Those who did not return have their meticulously maintained stone memorials on the fields of Flanders. But their memorial in our minds is largely built by Wilfred Owen

The greatest of all the War Poets… This edition…is a must for every poetry lover

Barack Obama is as fine a writer as they come . . . the prose gorgeous in places, the detail granular and vivid

What is unexpected in A Promised Land is not its literary elegance but the former president's candour

I loved A Promised Land . . . President Obama is unusually honest about his experience in the White House, including how isolating it is to be the person who ultimately calls the shots. It's a fascinating look at what it's like to steer a country through challenging times

Deeply enjoyable . . . Obama is such a fluent and warm writer and so good at describing events and people

Beautifully written . . . it's probably the best volume of autobiography from a former president in modern times

Remarkably candid and beautifully written . . . It should bring inspiration for we Brits who want to build our own version of inclusive patriotism here at home

Gives a very human insight into the White House

To keep company with his elegant prose, complex conscience and unmistakable intelligence is a cool drink of water after four years of the other guy . . .

Elegantly written ... Obama comes across as literary, tolerant and dignified. A gifted writer, he maintains the reader's interest for over 700 pages

Deeply enjoyable...Obama is such a fluent and warm writer and so good at describing events and people

His ability to put himself in the shoes of others - even those who treat him with open contempt - is admirable

Honest, powerful and personal...a must read

A brilliant, abrasive diplomat struggles to resolve foreign conflicts while fighting bureaucratic wars at home in this scintillating biography… Packer makes him a Shakespearean character—egomaniacal, devious, sloppy enough to make presidents deny him the prize of becoming secretary of state, yet charismatic and inspiring—in a larger-than-life portrait brimming with vivid novelistic impressions… In Holbrooke’s thwarted ambitions, Packer finds both a riveting tale of diplomatic adventure—part high drama, part low pettiness—and a captivating metaphor for America’s waning power.

By the end of the second page, maybe the third, you will be hooked...There never was a diplomat-activist quite like [Holbrooke], and there seldom has been a book quite like this -sweeping and sentimental, beguiling and brutal, catty and critical, much like the man himself.

The riveting life of a deeply flawed diplomat whose chief shortcoming seems to have been the need to be more recognized than he was... Students of recent world history and of American power, hard and soft, will find this an endlessly fascinating study of character and events.

It is impossible to read George Packer’s new biography of Richard Holbrooke without a piercing sense of melancholy, not only that a man so supremely alive should be dead, but also because such people — Our Man, in Packer’s title, the incarnation of vanished glory, imperial hubris, exceptional Americanism — no longer walk the earth… Extraordinary.

Stunning... If you’re one of the dozens of people running for president, the book is probably the best guide you can find to navigating a transitional moment in American leadership and foreign policy. For the rest of us, it’s a gripping read, and a sad one.

Through a depiction that may be likened to Robert Caro’s The Power Broker, Packer analyzes the forces of character that led us from a commitment to unity to the chaotic division in which we find ourselves today.

Best appreciated like a novel, consumed whole… charming, brilliant, cocksure.

Like Holbrooke, Packer’s account barrels along, brimming with mischief, verve and a sense of history. Unlike Holbrooke, it is tender and self-aware.

An endlessly engaging biography.

Our Man… [is] a fascinating examination of the (few) successes and (many) failures of US foreign policy over the last fifty years.

[Our Man is] heartfelt, virtuosic and quietly thoughtful at the same time

Isabel Wilkerson's book is a masterful narrative of the rich wisdom and deep courage of a great people. Don't miss it!

A landmark piece of non-fiction

A briliant and stirring epic

The mass migration of African Americans out of the US south forever changed the country's cultural fabric - and Wilkerson's history of this period is full of sacrifice and hope ...a long overdue account

A deeply affecting, finely crafted and heroic book. . . .Wilkerson has taken on one of the most important demographic upheavals of the past century and told it through the lives of three people ... lyrical and tragic