Place of Refuge

Tobias Jones is the author of four non-fiction books, Blood on the Altar, The Dark Heart of Italy, Basilitica andUtopian Dreams; and the Castagnetti crime trilogy, The Salati Case, White Death and Death of a Showgirl. He has worked as a journalist in Britain for the London Review of Books, the Independent on Sunday and the Observer; and in Italy, producing two political documentary series for the Italian state broadcaster RAI 3. He lives at Windsor Hill Wood in Somerset with his wife and three children where he runs a working farm refuge.

This is no Hollywood-style tale of redemption and transformation. It is something much more honest: a warts-and-all account of what it is like to try a radically different way of living, and to not only survive, but have real triumphs . . . Thanks to Jones's sense of humour the book rarely feels "worthy", in the pejorative sense, despite the subject matter . . . Admirably erudite, charming and reflective . . . To read this book is to imagine, even if only briefly, that a different way of living might be possible.