Letters to Camondo: ‘Immerses you in another age’ Financial Times (Paperback)

'Consistently illuminating... excellently illustrated... De Waal's excavation of the meanings of assimilation is considered, compassionate and appreciative of its costs... he is a wise guide to people and things that are dispersed and are collected... This book is a wonderful tribute to a family and to an idea' - Nicholas Wroe, The Guardian 

'Letters to Camondo immerses you in another age - one as sharply torn with rifts and bigotry, political uncertainty and changing fortunes as our own - but also a time of grace and the deliberate cultivation of pleasure... de Waal creates a dazzling picture of what it means to live graciously' - Nilanjana Roy, The Financial Times 

'Letters to Camondo... is subtle and thoughtful and nuanced and quiet. It is demanding but rewarding. It will make you think differently about trunks in the attic and it will make you read old letters with new eyes' - Laura Freeman, The Times 

'I was deeply moved... [de Waal] has found a way to meditate on exile, migration and polarisation that feels painfully relevant' - Johanna Thomas-Corr, The Sunday Times 

'This is a marvellous book, elegant, tender, loving, appreciative, disturbing, a reminder of both the fragility and resilience of high culture, indeed civilisation' - Allan Massie, The Scotsman *

'A slim elegant volume of beautifully written letters' - Louise Carpenter, The Times 

'Letters to Camondo tells de Waal's version of the Camondo story... layers of memories, hopes, fears embedded in the Musee Camondo brought alive...remarkable' - Jackie Wullschlager, The Financial Times 

'Moving... beautifully produced... I visited the Musee Nissim de Camondo some dozen years ago. Now I long to go back' - Gillian Tindall, The Literary Review 

'Enchanting... the prose is immaculately polished. [Edmund de Waal's] intelligence and scholarship are fastidious, his sensibility quivers like the wings of a hummingbird' - Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph