Constellation of Genius

[A] lively guide to modernism’s heyday … Almost every page yields something momentous or surprising of worth remembering, and the multitudinous footnotes, of which Jackson is a gleeful exploiter, add to the fun … Elegant and illuminating … A whizz-bang year.

Literary Review

Open this marvellous diary of a single year at any page and you will be struck by some startling moment of import in a life of genius or an epoch-making event.

Sunday Herald

Brilliantly erudite and very funny.

Robert Macfarlane

Drawing on diaries, letters and other snippets, Jackson composes a day-by-day account of his chosen year . . . Popular and high culture are equally celebrated in this Barnum’s Circus of a book. The volume is beautifully produced.

Sunday Telegraph

Jackson writes well, with a good sense of detail, and when he gets going he provides nuggets of tasty trivia even for those who know something about the subject already.

Sunday Times

This historical diary isn’t defined by literary achievement alone, despite the many and fascinating activities of Hemingway, Woolf, and Lawrence on almost every other page… although it’s in 1922 that Hitchcock directed his first film and Walt Disney released his first cartoon, it’s the political clouds looming in Germany and Russia, with violent turmoil in Ireland, that really stand out in this extraordinary year.

Independent on Sunday