An invigorating mixture of satire, history, philosophy, morality and linguistic investigation... it reads like a spoof of New Age intellectualism... a lament for the millenium; a brave cry in the wilderness

Articulate, comic, wise, delicate, melancholy, exquisite... a carefully-pulsed breath of a book with an impact that sneaks into one's dreams

The Plato Papers is a serious divertissement, a brilliant fabulation that is the product of a playful, engaged, and well-stocked mind... It unleashes large, tolling resonances

The Plato Papers can be enjoyed as a jeu d'esprit, but for students of Ackroyd it is something more... Richly revealing

It is hard to see who could have done the job better than Schmidt

Schmidt gives us a chance to settle down with poets we wish we had known better

A satisfying selection that reminds us that Lawrence didn't just write about animals, Betjeman wasn't always jolly, and Plath is more interesting for her collapsed perspectives than for her self-exposure

The selections from the greats are generous and well chosen