For an astonishing number of mothers, she has proved a saviour

Gina Ford is the Delia Smith of parenting ... while Delia tells you how to make the perfect omelette, Gina tells you how to nurture the perfectly happy baby

For me she was an absolute godsend

It sounds like common sense: after all, would you want to be strapped into a high chair and force-fed spoon after spoon of bland vegetables? It's surely much more exciting to be able to exercise a bit of control over your diet

[Baby-led weaning] could radically simplify infant feeding

Superbly written; poetic in the best sense, summoning up a world of terror and beauty

This account of a failed father-son relationship is written with extraordinary beauty and insight... His is a profound meditation on the life of the spirit, and the shadows we all carry in our hearts

Marvellously written scenes...few people write more hauntingly... His prose has a poet's delicacy and fine-honed precision

Anyone who has read Gosse, Ackerley or Tobias Wolff will know that big books can be made about small-time fathers. It's a tribute to Burnside that he maps this same territory and prompts these comparisons while creating a story that is uniquely his

This is a haunting read that will linger long after you close the pages of this book