PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Alan Taylor has been a journalist for over thirty years. He was deputy editor of the Scotsman, managing editor of Scotsman Publications, and writer-at-large for the Sunday Herald. He has edited several acclaimed anthologies, most recently Glasgow: The Autobiography (2016). He is the author of Appointment in Arezzo: A Friendship with Muriel Spark and, in 2018, series editor of the centenary edition of Spark's novels. He is the co-founder and editor of the Scottish Review of Books. Irene Taylor was born and brought up in Edinburgh. For many years she worked in public libraries. She has a degree in history from Edinburgh University and she now works for the National Trust for Scotland.
Like Shakespeare, the Bible and some of those other bedside titles, The Assassin's Cloak is not so much a book as a world * * Washington Post * * There are tremendous riches here. You are left with a kaleidoscope of images . . . There is profound despair, excitement, hope and a great deal of confession. The overall result is strangely uplifting * * Daily Telegraph * * The sublime and the ridiculous for once co-exist rather marvellously, letting us take insight from the mundane or the momentous, or simply from unique moments in time * * Observer * * So enthralling that one devours chunks at a time. One of the paperbacks of this year, or any year * * Herald * * A superb collection . . . Gossipy, funny, perceptive and vicious . . . Every dip-in is a sheer delight * * Observer * * This gloriously serendipitous gathering of diarists provides wonderfully diverse comments on virtually everything under the sun * * Sunday Telegraph * * For a delicious daily read, nothing can eclipse The Assassin's Cloak. This is the ultimate bedside book * * Daily Mail * * Wonderful . . . The range of diarists and subjects is remarkable, and the anthology is one to which you will want to return again and again * * Sunday Times * * Utterly compulsive, thanks, in part, to the excellent editing and the way in which they have allowed the commonplace to co-exist with the sage, the hackneyed with the gnostic. Its cumulative effect is surprisingly moving * * The Times * * Triumphantly eclectic and entertaining . . . What this delightful book demonstrates is that there is nothing more gripping than everyday life, and nothing more extraordinary than the commonplace * * Observer * *
