Lifescapes

She's a genius, I believe, because she lights up every subject she touches

Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall

Ann Wroe is a poet of the particular. Her prose, as tightly woven as a rush basket, frequently breaks into song. Lifescapes is a masterly celebration of the world, and of the peculiar and glorious predicament of its inhabitants

John Banville, author of The Sea

On the back page of the Economist, the recently departed breathe one last time. Every week I read her first and marvel at the alchemy that produces her beautiful words. Now, thanks to Lifescapes, I begin to understand from whence her shining gift has come

Peter Hennessy, author of The Silent Deep

A rare and beautiful book. Like an aurora borealis or an elusive spherical fish, Ann Wroe's writing performs a merger of substance and form. Reading her, your perception shift to a higher octave. If you want to experience a mystery - how the world's soul moves under the skin of this reality - read this book

Kapka Kassabova, author of Elixir

A fervent investigation into personhood... This book is full of valiant attempts to reach the hidden, inmost and yet most expansive meaning of being

Literary Review

What a treat it is to read a writer at the top of her game... Astonishing... Lifescapes is the universe in miniature

Daily Telegraph

Beautifully written, the prose witty, twisting and sensuous, but it is sharp, too

The Times

A brave, unfashionable and out of the ordinary book… A delight… Lifescapes encourages us to take a deep breath, contemplate life more keenly and acknowledge the miraculous if – and when – we find it

Observer

Evocative and beautifully written

Financial Times

This is biography as empathy and even hyper-empathy… Wroe operates like a kind of tuning fork… She seems to feel the energy that thrums in people, nature and objects… Compelling

Times Literary Supplement

Although the book is part memoir, part essay on the art of biography, it is really about the breath of life itself. Wroe’s writing is intense and visionary, at times almost ecstatic. Reader, dive in… Her voice, her writing, already add such consonance, such alert and graceful rapture, to the music of the world

Spectator

Books that are genuinely wise are rare. This is one of them... There’s a deeper optimism at work here that’s not remotely unwelcome in these grim times. Hilary Mantel thought Wroe a genius; John Banville digs her too. I think you will as well

National

This thought-provoking and beautifully written book blends memoir with poetry and biography in search of what elements can evoke the character of a person

Financial Times, *Books of the Year*

Seamlessly merges scenes from the author’s life with the overflow from her admirably humane Economist obituaries... This glimpse of Wroe at work, enriched with stories from her private notebooks, is a treat akin to, borrowing her words, 'wild plums fallen in the grass'

Times Literary Supplement, *Books of the Year*

A gentle, probing, and perceptive book… Wroe is able, with a few precise words, to bring complex, contradictory characters vividly to life

Church Times

'I think of my work as catching souls,' writes Ann Wroe, the obituaries editor of The Economist, at the start of this book... How she goes about capturing them all is a fascinating business

Sunday Times, *Books of the Year*

There is a magical quality to her unusual, almost ethereal writing. A soul catcher she is and I’m still thinking about it

Guardian