BOOK OF THE YEAR: “Engel’s masterly portrait … is consistently entertaining, frequently surprising and sometimes provocative.” – PETER WILBY, New Statesman
My literary Quality Street…, like the best assortment boxes, it encourages dipping, each chapter short and tasty enough to make you say, “Oh, just one more”. – PATRICK KIDD, The Times
“A powerful illumination of a lost world that is nevertheless part of living memory.” – SIMON HEFFER, Daily Telegraph
“A joyous new book on post-war Britain” – DAILY MAIL
“At least one priceless detail per page” – PHILIP NORMAN, The Observer
The best feature writer of his generation, Engel really scores in his attention to the minutiae of lived experience…. And he has a journalist’s eye for the killer detail. Did you know that Mr Justice Melford Stevenson, the judge who sentenced the Krays, lived in a house called Truncheons?” – CHRISTOPHER BRAY, The Tablet
“I really enjoyed this romp through the headlines, partly because Matthew Engel is such an amusing writer and partly because all sixty-one of his chapters come up like three-minute songs on the jukebox – soon over and always time for just one more… Engel thinks like a journalist but writes like a raconteur.” ROBERT COLLS, Literary Review