The Passengers (Hardback)

A snapshot of dreams and frustrations, pain and joy . . . A nation’s psyche comes to the surface. The Passengers is not just an oral history of the contemporary moment but, drenched in mood and texture, renders the country itself as a sonic collage.

A snapshot of our times, which could be quite a trite ambition, but it's a really successful, interesting and compelling book.

Engrossing . . . The variety of voices collected here reminds us of the uniqueness of every individual’s perspective . . . Ashon is a deft prose sculptor, working hard behind the scenes so that we can hear his interviewees’ voices clearly as we read and creating a structure in which improvisation and serendipity thrive. It is an artful addition to the oral history genre.

A magical mystery tour of modern Britain . . . a brilliant, uncategorisable book . . . Part oral history, part found poetry, his book uses the voices of ordinary Britons to produce a picture of the nation at a time of unique perspective. It is both a deeply quotidian book and an extraordinary one . . . an endlessly strange journey through the familiar . . . a book as readable as it is strange . . . [Ashon] brings a fine ear to a writing process that has as much in common with hip hop sampling as it does with Eliotesque high-modernism . . . a hopeful book, and a compassionate one.

A quietly remarkable study of the state of the nation, in which fragments piece together into a mosaic portrait of Britain’s soul . . . The Passengers gains force by increments, until it becomes a momentous assertion of our shared humanity that reminds us how much we have in common with strangers at a time when so much online discourse encourages division and fear of perceived enemies. It is a book that fosters connection, reminding us that most people can relate to the private pains of others, and we are all less alone than we fear. In doing so, the book performs a valuable service; and as a candid document of how it feels to live in Britain today, it could do the same for future historians.

From the first nine words, through thick and thin to the last nine words, The Passengers has both a dizzying symphonic complexity and a booming ambient simplicity, and these two characteristics work hand in hand, as in life, to unsettle, intrigue, perplex or inspire. The book makes you feel less alone. It opens the walls of the boxes we all trade our language and emotions in and lets us travel among ourselves.