Confessions

A book brimming with surprises and insight. I have known Edward Stourton for fifty years, but there have been adventures in his life of which I knew nothing whatever until I read this fascinating memoir. He has led a Life in Full - and has the brainpower to analyse it all with wit and perspective.

Nicholas Coleridge

A searingly honest insight into the life of one of our great journalists. Hugely entertaining too.

John Humphrys

Fascinating. Much more than a series of swashbuckling journalistic yarns, Confessions also describes the "awokening", as Stourton puts it, of someone born to privilege who has come increasingly to question the assumptions of his caste. He retains a kind of shaken, chastened faith, and a moral passion which he has, on the right occasions, allowed to break through the mask of journalistic impartiality.

Harry Eyres

A stonkingly good read - wise, informative and very funny.

Andrew Mitchell, MP

One of our most thoughtful and well-travelled journalists, Stourton manages both to educate and entertain with the inside track on a reporting career in the world's hotspots, and also to dig deeper to examine the role of memory in shaping our life stories.

Peter Stanford

A wonderful, poignant memoir - fluent, compelling and full of adventure.

Cristina Odone

A clear-eyed and compelling account of a life, told with honesty and much wry humour.

Luke Jennings

Ed Stourton's book is not only a gripping personal saga of the professional life of one of our top broadcasters, it is a valuable social document of an era of rapid media transformation. Brilliantly written, witty, searingly honest, his many fans will be delighted. A must read for every aspiring journalist.

John Cornwell

What an enviably beautiful story teller Ed Stourton is! But having acknowledged that 'tradition was seductive,' it is Ed's willingness to reflect, to re-assess and to embrace new ways of doing and of thinking that makes this book so unforgettable.

Juliet Nicolson, author of Frostquake and A House Full of Daughters

Confessions is a moving reflection on 40 years adventures in journalism and a lifetime of religious faith (and doubt). It is refreshingly clear-sighted and unsentimental and above all, energised by an engaging desire to reach the ever-elusive heart of the matter.

Lucy Lethbridge

An original and insightful memoir - and an exorcism of ghosts.

Martin Bell

Rich in personal and profession insights.

Stewart Purvis

A model of its kind. Calmly, bravely written, infused by his Catholic upbringing, and intriguingly haunted by the posh question ... filled with qualities that are the marks of a good life: candour and courage, deployed with generosity and modesty, all of them here in spades.

Adam Nicolson

The quiet confessions of a Radio 4 gent ... You can't help hearing the familiar tones of the author speaking the words ... Entertaining ... nicely self-mocking ... I'm glad to have his civilised and ever-optimistic voice in my ear.

Ysenda Maxtone Graham, The Times

If you value the perspective and judgment of one who has covered, often from the frontline, the major events of the past four decades, then snap up a copy.

Peter Stanford, Mail on Sunday

Thoughtful, witty, occasionally comic, often effortlessly profound - not a conventional journalistic memoir.

Justin Webb, Sunday Times

I have worked with many journalists during my sixty years in the trade and Edward is among the very best. He is untainted by the cynicism that infects so many of us, deeply thoughtful and committed to telling the truth. This important book reflects all that. And it's great fun too. Short version:

John Humphrys