Waking Up in Toytown

Burnside is an utterly original author

Harry Eyres, Financial Times

Beautifully written and observed memoir ... an affecting book from a writer of manifest talent; a compellingly readable memoir possessed of a genuine spiritual and intellectual depth

Adam O'Riordan, Sunday Telegraph

The precision and beauty of his language is like a proof of his achievement... a kind of higher sanity

Aida Eiderman, Guardian

[One of the] most lucid and poetic of memoirs

Jane Shilling, Daily Telegraph

Burnside may not find himself convincing, but this complex, considered piece of work certainly is

Doug Johnstone, Independent

There is no truer writer than John Burnside...[A] searching enquiry into a life: bruised, filled with grace and as plangent and haunting as any plainsong

Catherine Lockerbie, Scotsman

Hauntingly written ... a gripping, often humours account of the world of the functioning alcoholic ... stunningly exact prose

Bee Wilson, Sunday Times

A brilliant portrait of isolation... This sophisticated study of the human mind argues for our right "to continue in the pursuit of whole-heartedness. To be not-normal after all"

Fiona Sampson, Independent

Beautifully written and observed... He writes about squalor and desperation with precision and beauty

The Week

Burnside's memoir deserves to become a classic. Has anyone written about the direct experience of mental illness with such scrupulous observation and wit?

Daily Express

Disturbing, powerful memoir

Sunday Times

One of the best memoirs I've read for ages

William Leith, Spectator

[Burnside has a] poetic eye for language and image...[a] non-judgemental, ultimately redemptive search for some sort of meaning among the shifting sands of madness and sanity

Claire Allfree, Metro

This is an extraordinary book and one so honest it scorches

Carlo Gebler, Irish Times

From the very first page, arrestingly headed 'The Epilogue,' Burnside's memoir is absorbing

Guardian