‘Breen is at his best in his anecdotes…[he] tells you all the interesting things about the Korea of today’

As good a guide to a fascinating country in transformation as you will get.

A broad and deep exposition of South Korean history, politics, economy and society that will have even the oldest Korea hands going "I never knew that".'

Not only is The New Koreans magnificent in its sweep and depth; as a bonus, it's...fun to read

[An] informative, deep introduction to this fascinating (and not well-known) country and, in addition, an engaging read.

Affectionate, critical, full of anecdotes, this is a constantly astonishing and highly readable exploration of Korea's identity.

In an age where everyone is sharply critical of everyone else, The New Koreans is a delightful change of pace, pungent observations of Koreans as they see themselves and as outsiders see them, part history, part story telling, all pieces of a beautiful, frustrating, endearing puzzle fit together in a superb way as only a keen, veteran observer as Michael Breen can do.

Michael Breen’s excellent “The New Koreans,” an economic, political and social history, shows how South Korea went “from basket case to emerging market” in a period of 40 years. In the process of telling that story, Mr Breen, a British-born journalist who lives in Seoul, explodes many of the excuses frequently used by economists and historians to rationalize the country’s underperformance.

Many valuable insights into the “ancient worlds”.

An ambitious reordering of ancient worlds… [which] brings the study of Greece and Rome together with Central Asia, India and China… Thoroughly admirable… This is an impressive feat.

Deftly sweeps us along on an illuminating voyage through history, revealing how an array of political systems and religious beliefs came to be, and the growing connections between them.... Provides a thoroughly enjoyable and much wider view of the ancient world and a better understanding of how it shaped our own.

Globalization is nothing new: early civilizations already shared formative experiences and interacted in many different ways. By re-connecting multiple ancient worlds from Europe to India and China that have long been viewed in isolation, Michael Scott deftly steers the study of ancient history into the twenty-first century. A landmark achievement.

Ground-breaking

This kind of bold, transgressional ancient history is still vanishingly rare…Michael Scott’s Ancient Worlds is a welcome addition to the genre.

Poignant and courageous

This is Juliet Nicolson's own truth, courageously shared

Strikingly lucid, brave and generous

This is the mesmerising, seven-generations saga of the strong women in Juliet Nicolson’s family

Alongside vivid portraits of Pepita, Victoria and Vita, Nicolson delivers a magnificently clear-eyed view of her mother… Lovely, elegant book, painstakingly unsentimental.

She examines the pride, passion, resentment, emotional neglect, addiction and loss, and recognizes them in her own life... a treat

Few writers can boast such a literary heritage as Juliet Nicolson, granddaughter of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson, who turns her astute historian’s eye onto her own family history.

An engaging history-cum-memoir… Strongest when exploring the tender relationship between Nicolson and her father after her mother’s death as a result of alcoholism, her own struggles with the same condition, the knife-twist of grief when one loses a parent, and the emotional rush of motherhood.

I would recommend everyone to read this book

Juliet Nicolson is firing on all cylinders ... She is able to write about powerful emotion in a way that is both heartfelt and unselfconscious ... It makes the book perfectly personal as well as a fascinating history

This book is a marvellous illustration of the often forgotten fact that people in history were real, with real ambition, real passion and real rage. All these women took life by the throat and shook it. It’s a wonderful read, and a powerful reminder of the significance of our matrilineal descent

Juliet Nicolson's book will engage the hearts and minds of daughters and sons everywhere. She has turned my attention to much in my life, and I am full of admiration for her clarity and gentleness

I loved A House Full of Daughters. I was initially intrigued, then gripped, and then when she began writing about herself, deeply moved and admiring of the way in which she charted her own journey. An illuminating book in which she charts the inevitability of family life and the damage and gifts that we inherit from the previous generations

A fascinating, beautifully written, brutally honest family memoir. I was riveted. This is a book to read long into the night

I was riveted... She is so astute about mother/daughter relationships and the tenderness of fathers and daughters. She deeply understands the way problems pass down through generations... I congratulate her on her fierce understanding.

Juliet Nicolson’s writing is so confident and assured. She combines the magic of a novelist with the rigour of a historian, and the result is thrilling and seriously powerful

Once I started it was impossible to stop. I was totally absorbed by Juliet Nicolson's large-souled approach to family memoir down the generations, drawing the reader into lives that reverberate with achievement and suffering... movingly original

A moving and very revealing account of seven generations of strong and yet curiously vulnerable mothers and daughters

An outstanding book about a gifted, unconventional family told through the female line. Insightful, painfully honest, beautifully written and full of love, wisdom, compassion, loss, betrayal and self-doubt. A House Full of Daughters will resonate down the years for all who read it

An engaging memoir in which Nicolson lays bare discoveries about herself, but also gives a fascinating inside take on her renowned, and already much scrutinized, forebears. She also has much that is thought-provoking to say about mothers and daughters, marriage and the way in which damaging patterns can repeat down generations.

Nicolson is perceptive on difficult mother-daughter relationships.

A fascinating personal look at family, the past and love.

Beautifully written history… She has as easy and elegant a style as her many writer relations, so this book is seductively readable. It could be described as a late addition to the ‘Bloomsbury’ shelves, but that should not put off anyone who feels enough has been said about that particular group. I found it touching and fascinating. In admitting that Nigel Nicolson was a friend, I can say with confidence that he would have been painfully proud of his daughter’s candid confession.

Highly readable, no-holds barred tale.

Nicolson has written a poignant and courageous history.

The most enjoyable book to take on holiday would undoubtedly be Juliet Nicolson’s A House Full of Daughters… It is ideal holiday reading.

A simple premise looking at seven generations of women in one family, but it's got all the juicy bits of several novels in one

[An] ambitious memoir.

An entrancing book… A poignant, well-written memoir-cum-social history

A fine family memoir.

This engrossing book charts seven generations of a family who were obsessive documenters of their lives through diaries, letters, memoirs and autobiographical novels… Interwoven with the personal is a portrait of society’s changing expectations of women, and the struggle to break free from patriarchy. Here, brilliantly laid bare, are both the trials of being a daughter and of documenting daughterhood in all its complexity.

A charming book about the female side of Nicolson’s family tree.