Steeple Chasing

What makes Steeple Chasing so compelling - and it is a wonderful book; thoughtful and challenging - ... is Ross's essential kindness, his unfailing empathy with the people he meets on his pilgrimage.

Ross has always had a quiet charm, and it is perhaps displayed best in this book. . . it is properly interested in humanity, especially in its complexity.

Steeple Chasing is, as you might expect from Ross, itself a beautiful object, full of delicacy and deliberation in the writing. . .a fascinating, beautifully written book full of both the strange and the terrible, but also full of grace and love.

Beautifully observed and evocatively written.

Reading a book is another reciprocal act: if it's good, it stays with you. Ross's readers will have his words humming through them for a long time.

Lovely, lyrical, whimsical, elegiac ... Ross has a gift for making you feel you're there with him, just as awed as he is.

His book is a delicious treat, and one that both believers and sceptics will enjoy.

Never less than fascinating.

A charming odyssey . . . in this lyrical love letter to churches Ross reminds us there is something worth saving and people who will make the effort.