Holland's text makes for energizing reading . . . unquestionably the best English translation of Herodotus to have appeared in the last half-century . . . fast, funny, opinionated, clear and erudite . . . I am in awe of Tom Holland's achievement

Tom Holland has been captivated by Herodotus since he was a child. His pleasure shines through his relaxed, idiomatic, expansive and often dramatic translation . . . He, like Herodotus, is a storyteller par excellence

A labour of love . . . full of rattling good yarns . . . the minister for education should present each of his cabinet colleagues with a copy of Holland's admirable translation

Though a sense of deep anger imbues Yang Jisheng's book, it is all the more powerful for its restraint ... Tombstone meticulously demonstrates that the famine was not only vast, but manmade; and not only manmade but political, born of totalitarianism

Tombstone is not just a history but a political sensation ... rich with details ... there is no doubting Yang Jisheng's immense political courage in compiling and writing it ... His book is not just a tombstone for his father and other famine victims, but for the reputation of the Communist party's leadership at a time when they should have acted

A captivating cradle-to-grave biography

In this vivid biography, as colourful and intricate as the embroidery on a Chinese robe, [Jung Chang] uses new evidence and meticulous research to cast a spotlight on the amazing woman she regards as the mother of modern China…This is a rich, dramatic story of rebellions, battles, plotting, rivalry, foreign invasion, punishment and forbidden love.

An absorbing read.

This is an important book, drawing attention to a period in China's history that has received little, and usually only negative, attention. Chang writes with verve, energy and evident concern for the country in which her books are proscribed and her family was made to suffer during the Cultural Revolution.

Fascinating… A depiction of the birth of modern China and an intimate portrait of a woman, this is history writing at its best

A beautifully narrated biography… Chang has a wonderful eye for the telling detail

Groundbreaking.

Chang turns the harridan into a heroine.

Filled with new revelations… Gripping and surprising… Powerful.

Absorbing… Chang has a novelist’s eye for small detail… Chang weaves a suspenseful, anecdote-laden tale.

One of those rare non-fiction books that reads like a novel without compromising the quality of research – we couldn’t put it down

One of the most important authors of our age, in that she has shown China to the world.

This is an electrifying description of the birth of modern China and an intimate portrait of an extraordinary woman

Chinese political history can be a tough nut to crack, but Chang weaves in and out of Cixi’s biography with an ease that is almost as astounding as the events themselves

Records [Higgins’] own travels around the island in search of Roman traces. She includes plenty of anecdotes about the continuing fascination with the Roman past and its penetration of the present.

Higgins produced another remarkable British travelogue… that was at once thoughtful, learned, witty and superbly written.

Filled with passion and personal interest… Higgins walks us around the landscape of this country as it would have been 2,000 years ago, and in doing so she ably captures the spirit of Britain now, Britain then and Britain in between.

Whether at Hadrian’s Wall or in a car park in the City, she [Higgins] shows how Roman traces are woven through British life.

A fascinating look at how we have viewed Rome's presence in these islands and what a debt we still owe to Roman achievements.

Part history, part travelogue, [Higgins] also brings to life the eccentric archaeologists who have tried to recapture that lost civilisation.

A fresh and readable account

Under Another Sky is not only a work of personal history, it is more personal than that... It is conversational, anecdotal, in a way that makes it easy for [Higgins] to slip in quite a lot of information

A delightful, effortlessly engaging handbook to the half-lost, half-glimpsed world of Roman Britain... The result is an utterly original history, lyrically alive to the haunting presence of the past and our strange and familiar ancestors

The beauty of this book is not just in the elegant prose and in the precision with which [Higgins] skewers her myths. It is in the sympathy she shows for the myth-makers.

Evocative...a keen-eyed tour of Britain.

Packed with fascinating and thought-provoking insights.

A captivating travelogue.

A delightfully heady and beautifully written potpourri of a book.

A fascinating look at the debt we owe to Roman achievements

A fascination exploration

Highly readable but profoundly researched, The Trigger represents a bold exception to the deluge of First World War books devoted to mud, blood and poetry

a fascinating original portrait of a man and his country