[A] fascinating biography… Lubow has performed miracles in gleaning so much fascinating material from Arbus’s friends, colleagues and assistants

[A] Deeply researched, sometimes prurient, new biography.

Lubow’s excavation of the private life of a great artist is...welcome.

It paints a convincing picture of a lost soul.

A fluid series of meditations on the big questions of life, on love, faith, time and on the nature and purpose of art, the influence of architecture and, most important of all to this author, grief, mourning and memory

Mingles insightful and often moving art history with frank personal recollection in a way that reminds us of the communality we share not only with our contemporaries, but with all historical epochs. I can think of no better expression of the humane than this economical, modest, yet altogether breathtaking book

Hisham Matar is a brilliant narrative architect and prose stylist, his pared-down approach and measured pace a striking complement to the emotional tumult of his material

What interests him in this art is the human knowledge the painter is trying to convey. The description is exact and graceful, as Matar's prose tends to be

A Month in Siena bears all the hallmarks of Matar's writing: it is exquisitely constructed and the use of language is precise and delicately nuanced without pretension. And there is a deceptive simplicity to his endeavour: to look at art. What emerges is an altogether more complex philosophical exploration of death, love, art, relationships and time

A deeply moving, engrossing book. Written in elegant, concise prose, it is a remarkable mediation on life, loss, mourning, exile, friendship and the power of art

Hisham Matar has the quality all historians - of the world and the self - most need: he knows how to stand back and let the past speak

A thing of beauty and wisdom

A dazzling exploration of art's impact on his life and writing, and a moving contemplation of grief

An exquisite, deeply affecting book

Everybody should get to spend a month with Mr. Matar, looking at paintings

Bewitching . . . Meditating on art, history and the relationship between them, this is both a portrait of a city and an affirmation of life's quiet dignities in the face of loss

I can’t stop thinking about [Bluets].

Always beguiling, her writing is powerful, incisive and so singular that it defies categorization … raw, honest and urgent… [Nelson] always prompt me to see some aspect of life very differently.

Last year, while recovering from a break up with a long-term partner, I carried the book with me everywhere... The way that she renders her experiences and thoughts in such vivid, aching and raw detail served as a shelter for me, and a way to articulate feelings I didn't yet have the distance or strength to put words to.

Bluets is an expansive, intensely poetic text about Nelson's life-long infatuation with the colour blue... in Nelson's most visceral moments of divulgence, we see a testament to love in all its inexpressibility.

The results of her [Murphy's] tireless research to us reveals, too, a fascinating picture of life in the 19th-century Province... Murphy is terrier-like in her pursuit of the facts... and didn't stop digging until she'd found the whole story

His enthusiasm is infectious... This is not just about one ancient industry – somehow, superbly, it's about industry itself

Combining what is clearly a life-long love of art with an admirable depth of knowledge, Barnes brings a novelist’s eye to the gallery wall and, with this, a fresh, accessible approach to the stories being told in each painting.

Thought-provoking, beautifully presented, tender.

Barnes has a wonderful eye for what makes a good picture, and a command of language that again and again allows readers to share what he sees.

Well-informed and deeply admiring, but never didactic.

[It] gave me a new confidence in how to engage with, understand and, more importantly, enjoy wandering around an exhibition.

For those…insecure when viewing art, not always sure how to decode it or emotionally engage with it, this offers a lifeline…Utterly compelling.

A typically elegant ad absorbing book by one of t great contemporary English Writers, and with strong Gallic undertones – a wonderful set of essays about artists, many of them French, covering the period from Romanticism through to modernism.

Opinionated, enthusiastic, witty and beautifully written.

Julian Barnes is best known for his fiction...but he's also an excellent art writer... Peppered with personal insights and select historical detail, each piece is as engaging as the next

Unusually moving.