The North of England Home Service

Extraordinary, funny, tender, poetic . . . The story that emerges is Britain’s.

The history he presents, at times wielding Orwellian eloquence, is worth the price of the book itself.

A lavish recreation of the postwar landscapes . . . Written with all the eye-catching detail that gives Burn’s non-fiction its allure.

No other English writer does quite what Burn does, and he does it brilliantly.

Gordon Burn is a poet of the humdrum; ordinary lives achieve a quality of numinousness.

Enthralling . . . His ability to evoke time and place is outstanding . . . so vivid that you can almost smell it.