A Tomb With a View – The Stories & Glories of Graveyards

Critics Review

• Absorbing . . . considered and moving.

  Hilary Mantel

• Fascinating . . . Ross makes a likeably idiosyncratic guide and one finishes the book feeling strangely optimistic about the inevitable.

  The Observer

• The pages burst with life and anecdote while also examining our relationship with remembrance.

  Financial Times

• Among the year’s most surprising “sleeper” successes is A Tomb with a View, Peter Ross’s critically acclaimed ode to “the stories and glories of graveyards”. In a year with so much death, it may have initially seemed a hard sell, but the author’s humanity has instead acted as a beacon of light in the darkness.

  The Sunday Times

• Never has a book about death been so full of life. James Joyce and Charles Dickens would’ve loved it – a book that reveals much gravity in the humour and many stories in the graveyard. It also reveals Peter Ross to be among the best non-fiction writers in the country.

  Andrew O'Hagan

• I have nothing but admiration for his way to winkle out a story from the living as well as paying homage to the dead.

  The Scotsman

• Ross has written [a] lively elegy to Britain’s best burial grounds.

  Evening Standard

• A brilliant buy

  Stylist

• A startling, delight-filled tour of graveyards and the people who love them, dazzlingly told.

  Denise Mina

• Beautifully written and strangely life affirming.

  Norman Blake, Teenage Fanclub

• A walk through the graveyards of Britain guided by one of the most engaging wordsmiths willing to take you by the hand.

  The Big Issue

• It is not too fanciful to talk of the soul of A Tomb With A View. It is replete with stories but it echoes with something profound.

  The Herald

• Scottish journalist Ross’s meander around graveyards raises profound questions about the way in which we mourn

  I News - Christmas Gift Guide 2020

• Peter Ross makes a fine contribution to the library of books about “being planted”. . . I have nothing but admiration for his way to winkle out a story from the living as well as paying homage to the dead

  The Scotsman's Scottish Books of the Year

• Everyday humanity, an acknowledgement of how life continues in the presence of the dead. . . is writ large in A Tomb with a View, in Ross’s encounters with tour guides, local historians, a gardener, a stonecutter, even a recent widow.

  Prospect

• Ross’s book is an engaging ramble among the gravestones and burial plots of Britain and Ireland

  Irish Examiner

• I’m a card-carrying admirer of Peter Ross.

  Robert Macfarlane

• His stories are always a joy.

  Ian Rankin

• An evocative and uplifting exploration of cemeteries, where every headstone has a story to tell. . . Ross is a wonderfully evocative writer, deftly capturing a sense of place and history, while bringing a deep humanity to his subject. He has written a delightful book.

  The Guardian Book of The Day

• Ross’ development into a sensitive and empathetic observer of social ritual has culminated in this treasure

  The Big Issue