"The pages glint with scintillating nuggets recovered from the river.... You might well think that the garlanded biographer of Dickens and Turner was born to write this extraordinary book." --The Observer

"Mesmerising. . . As soon as you open this account of the Thames, you will want to immerse yourself in it. . . . No one is better than Ackroyd at evoking the texture and atmosphere of the distant past." --Daily Telegraph

"An unmissable performance." --The Guardian

"[A book of] substance and unflaggingly interesting detail. . . a very enjoyable and highly idiosyncratic account of the subject." --The Spectator

"Wonderful.... Peter Ackroyd's writing is such a pleasure that Thames can be read all at once, with increasing delight, and afterwards dipped into, like stretches of the great waterway it charts and celebrates." --Financial Times Magazine

"[Ackroyd's] exhaustive reclaiming of the Thames inks in colourful new detail. --TIME

"a rich offering by a masterly writer..." --Times Literary Supplement

"[Ackroyd] presents his material as a cornucopia of treats and insights delivered from all directions." --The Independent