"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
"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 *
"Parks is also a railway enthusiast and this delightful book is the story of his love-hate relationship with Italian trains" * Literary Review *
