"This book itself is marvellous proof that the prospect of ruins can elicit the finest cadences of the language, whereby a languorous and clamant prose is drawn out of the spectacle of desuetude and decay-In Ruins is a rich and absorbing volume" -- Peter Ackroyd The Times "Woodward ravishes the reader with the sudden twists and turns of his elegant narrative as it moves in whatever direction he wishes it to go-Woodward's infectious enthusiasm for his subject will send his readers in many new directions" -- Frances Spalding Sunday Times "Christopher Woodward's paean of praise to the ruin fizzes with felicitous detail, anecdote, literary reference and art history-An enchanting and informative voyage" Evening Standard "An enchanting kaleidoscope of ruins from all times, cultures, and places, is full of stimulating juxtapositions" Country Life

"This book itself is marvellous proof that the prospect of ruins can elicit the finest cadences of the language, whereby a languorous and clamant prose is drawn out of the spectacle of desuetude and decay-In Ruins is a rich and absorbing volume" -- Peter Ackroyd The Times "Woodward ravishes the reader with the sudden twists and turns of his elegant narrative as it moves in whatever direction he wishes it to go-Woodward's infectious enthusiasm for his subject will send his readers in many new directions" -- Frances Spalding Sunday Times "Christopher Woodward's paean of praise to the ruin fizzes with felicitous detail, anecdote, literary reference and art history-An enchanting and informative voyage" Evening Standard "An enchanting kaleidoscope of ruins from all times, cultures, and places, is full of stimulating juxtapositions" Country Life

"This book itself is marvellous proof that the prospect of ruins can elicit the finest cadences of the language, whereby a languorous and clamant prose is drawn out of the spectacle of desuetude and decay-In Ruins is a rich and absorbing volume" -- Peter Ackroyd The Times "Woodward ravishes the reader with the sudden twists and turns of his elegant narrative as it moves in whatever direction he wishes it to go-Woodward's infectious enthusiasm for his subject will send his readers in many new directions" -- Frances Spalding Sunday Times "Christopher Woodward's paean of praise to the ruin fizzes with felicitous detail, anecdote, literary reference and art history-An enchanting and informative voyage" Evening Standard "An enchanting kaleidoscope of ruins from all times, cultures, and places, is full of stimulating juxtapositions" Country Life