The Music Room

A small masterpiece, a tribute to the power of place, family and memory * The Telegraph *
A brilliant meld of memoir, family history and the sense of what it means to truly care for ourselves, other people and places . . . Fiennes is becoming one of our finest writers * Metro *
A beautiful and fortifying book, even a great one * The Daily Telegraph *
Beautifully written, and by turns lyrical, nostalgic and surprising . . . There are many memoirs in the world . . . but there are precious few books that do both as well as Fiennes’s does. Oliver Sacks’s work springs to mind, of course, though his books, marvellous as they are, aren't nearly as accomplished as this one. The way that Fiennes deploys and marshals language here really is quite exceptional . . . This is a brilliant work that combines social observation, personal testimony and medical history in a unique, fresh and utterly captivating way * The Irish Times *
On putting the book down I felt as if I had been hypnotised. It held me entranced, afraid and awed. All human grief and glory shimmers off the page * The Times *
Fiennes has a poet's gift for creating images that are fresh and original, and yet so natural as to seem almost inevitable * The Spectator *
It is not often that another person’s memories move into one’s own mind and inhabit it almost as though they were one’s own * Literary Review *
An enchanting book . . . Fiennes has the gift of transmuting the detail of everyday life into a moving poetry * Daily Mail *
An exceptionally honest, beautifully-written and observed memoir of a strange childhood * Independent *
Stunning . . . Fiennes’ prose is precise and poetic, rich in metaphor and mythology. A tender and poignant insight into family life * Psychologies Magazine *
A thoughtful and lyrical account of an extraordinary childhood * The Guardian *
A beautiful poem of a tribute to his family, his parents, the magical, moated castle that was his home * Scotland on Sunday *
An eloquent, heartfelt tribute to a sibling marooned in another land * Tatler *
A marvel. Like the best poetry, its lucid, simple narrative is able to achieve myriad things at once -- Karen Armstrong, author of The Spiral Staircase
Startlingly original . . . [Fiennes] seems essentially a poet, and his offerings are rich . . . Beautiful * Tablet *
Masterful – this is a book of such quivering tenderness and beauty that it's as if the author played it on the strings of his family's generous heart -- Alexandra Fuller, author of Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight
Searing melancholy and quiet exuberance are twined with scholarship in this elegant book, written with an infinite restraint that makes the emotionally charged contents almost unbearably poignant * Andrew Solomon *
Fiennes writes with well-disciplined lyricism punctuated with startling imagery, strongly rooted in a pastoral tradition, with a sharp clarity of perception untainted by nostalgia. He is a writer of intense originality: one longs to know what he will do next * Evening Standard *
Beautifully written * New Statesman *