About the Author

Peter Ross is an Orwell journalism fellow. His writing has appeared in national newspapers and magazines in the UK and US. His won the non-fiction prize at Scotland's National Book Awards with A Tomb With A View: The Stories & Glories of Graveyards, and his most recent book, Steeple Chasing, was a Sunday Times bestseller and was selected as Waterstones Non-Fiction Book of the Month. He is also author of the collections Daunderlust and The Passion Of Harry Bingo. He lives in Glasgow.

Reviews

Absorbing . . . considered and moving.
*Hilary Mantel*

Fascinating . . . Ross makes a likeably idiosyncratic guide and one finishes the book feeling strangely optimistic about the inevitable.
*The Observer*

The pages burst with life and anecdote while also examining our relationship with remembrance.
*Financial Times*

Among the year's most surprising "sleeper" successes is A Tomb with a View, Peter Ross's critically acclaimed ode to "the stories and glories of graveyards". In a year with so much death, it may have initially seemed a hard sell, but the author's humanity has instead acted as a beacon of light in the darkness.
*The Sunday Times*

Never has a book about death been so full of life. James Joyce and Charles Dickens would've loved it - a book that reveals much gravity in the humour and many stories in the graveyard. It also reveals Peter Ross to be among the best non-fiction writers in the country.
*Andrew O'Hagan*

I have nothing but admiration for his way to winkle out a story from the living as well as paying homage to the dead.
*The Scotsman*

Ross has written [a] lively elegy to Britain's best burial grounds.
*Evening Standard*

A brilliant buy
*Stylist*

A startling, delight-filled tour of graveyards and the people who love them, dazzlingly told.
*Denise Mina*

Beautifully written and strangely life affirming.
*Norman Blake, Teenage Fanclub*

A walk through the graveyards of Britain guided by one of the most engaging wordsmiths willing to take you by the hand.
*The Big Issue*

It is not too fanciful to talk of the soul of A Tomb With A View. It is replete with stories but it echoes with something profound.
*The Herald*

Scottish journalist Ross's meander around graveyards raises profound questions about the way in which we mourn
*I News - Christmas Gift Guide 2020*

Peter Ross makes a fine contribution to the library of books about "being planted". . . I have nothing but admiration for his way to winkle out a story from the living as well as paying homage to the dead
*The Scotsman’s Scottish Books of the Year*

Everyday humanity, an acknowledgement of how life continues in the presence of the dead. . . is writ large in A Tomb with a View, in Ross's encounters with tour guides, local historians, a gardener, a stonecutter, even a recent widow.
*Prospect*

Ross's book is an engaging ramble among the gravestones and burial plots of Britain and Ireland
*Irish Examiner*

I'm a card-carrying admirer of Peter Ross.
*Robert Macfarlane*

His stories are always a joy.
*Ian Rankin*

An evocative and uplifting exploration of cemeteries, where every headstone has a story to tell. . . Ross is a wonderfully evocative writer, deftly capturing a sense of place and history, while bringing a deep humanity to his subject. He has written a delightful book.
*The Guardian Book of The Day*

Ross' development into a sensitive and empathetic observer of social ritual has culminated in this treasure
*The Big Issue*

A phenomenal, lyrical, beautiful book
*Frank Turner*

A startling, delight-filled tour of graveyards and the people who love them, dazzlingly told.
*Denise Mina*

[a] celebration of life and of love. It confronts our universal fate but tends towards a comforting embrace of mortality. It is also imbued with something deeply moving.
*The Herald*