Italian Ways

All Italy is here, its history, its character, its flaws * Sunday Times *
A treat equivalent to a ride on the Orient Express * Wall Street Journal *
Like the best train journeys, you don’t want it to end * New Statesman *
A very funny hosanna to Italian railroad locomotion in all its rackety glory * Evening Standard, Books of the Year *
Parks has the keenest of eyes for the telling of amusing detail ... He remains the best interpreter of Italian ways in Italy * Sunday Herald *
Tim Parks has written a book about Italian railways that is engrossing, entertaining, and wonderfully revealing about the country and its people. It makes perfect armchair travelling – a delight from beginning to end -- David Lodge
All Italy is here, its history, its character, its flaws, and some of the things that Parks loves about the place * Sunday Times *
The book is, as Tim Parks says, a search for the Italian character, which he evokes in dozens of gorgeously written scenes; but beyond that Parks is exploring the dynamic between tradition and innovation... Underneath everything, Parks is trying to come to a point of loving the world in all its confusion and frustration, and by the book's end he does, he does. Bravo -- David Shields
This latest peg on which to hang another ruminative book about the character of Italy provides Parks with a first-class ticket to ride as a lively, erudite raconteur in salty daily negotiation with what he calls a ‘dystopian paradise’ -- Iain Finlayson * The Times *
With Paul Theroux apparently winding down, there might be an opening for Parks as a new laureate of international railways -- Andrew Martin * Observer *