Craftland

Craftland is a book that shimmers with love for a dwindling world of meticulous, patient labour … Lyrical … Deftly written and well researched

Guardian

A beautifully crafted book – akin to the beautifully crafted objects it describes … What a treat to discover facts and stories that feed the heart and prove that craft is as ever present as it has forever been

Kate Malone, ceramist

This hugely absorbing book is so full of stories of crafts and craftspeople and communities, and of creativity over the ages. It’s such an important story to tell and told so compellingly. Wonderful

Michael Morpurgo, author of War Horse

Beautiful, eye-opening and surprisingly moving - a treat to treasure

Lucy Worsley, author of Jane Austen at Home

It is so rare to come across a book brimming with fresh news and seasoned with hope. James Fox uncovers a largely hidden history which is still alive all around us today. I read it in two gulps with delight

Andrew Marr, author and journalist

A dazzling combination of evocative prose and meticulous research, Craftland is an impassioned undertaking and novel portrait of the country’s past and how we might rethink our future

Kate Bryan, art historian

This extraordinary book is essential reading. It will leave you awestruck at the complexity and persistence of the crafts that shaped our world, and inspired to engage more deeply with our vanishing material world of objects and skills. Anyone who has ever felt a disconnection from modern life will find themselves irresistibly drawn in

Xand Van Tulleken

An impassioned and inspiring account of the extraordinary men and women still doing traditional artisanal work in Britain

Sunday Times, *Book of the Week*

Meet the weavers, watchmakers and wheelwrights keeping Britain’s noble craft traditions alive … Fox effortlessly persuades the reader about the superiority of all things crafted

Mail on Sunday

If you want to know about Britain and yourself, read this book … This is a tremendous book that urges us – in spite of the seductions of crass modernity – to believe in the craftspeople, living and dead, who made us who we are.

Spectator

Utterly enchanting

Amol Rajan, BBC Radio 4 Today

Brillian[t] … I recommend that the book be read slowly, section by section, so all the details can be appreciated

Literary Review

Superb … A book with many highlights … [Fox] brings his critical intelligence to platform the usually silent process of mastering a craft. I read the book with admiration not only for the remarkable subjects individually, but also the human spirit that unites them all

New Statesman