'the author folds in on herself in tight, dense, intricate coils, then unfolds herself again with miraculous lightness and delicacy.'
--Guardian
McWilliam writes with elegance, with sardonic humour and with honesty. --The Sunday Times
What a precise and poetic dissection of a life this is; how brave she was, and how wise, to undertake it. --The Telegraph
...the most startling, discomforting, complicated, ungovernable, hilarious and heart-rending of memoirs.
-- The Telegraph
'So begins one of the most extraordinary literary autobiographies of this or any other year' --The Times
'An essential book in all of its aspects... a thing of beauty... the work of a vulnerable, unfailingly generous soul.' --The Scotsman
A 'never-less-than-enticing chronicle of a troubled life' -- The Herald
`A rare thing: a misery memoir that, while touching the far reaches of pain, leaves one feeling enriched, not dirty'
-- Financial Times
'It is an extremely sagacious book about loss' --The Observer
'This is a moving, uplifting, shocking and compellingly strange book...a powerful work of art' --Scotland on Sunday
'A fine, challenging autobiography...That she survived to write a book as good as this is nothing short of miraculous.'
--Daily Mail
`What to Look for in Winter...is an extremely sagacious book about loss' --The Observer
`This is a moving, uplifting, shocking and compellingly strange book.' --Scotland on Sunday
`...a...challenging autobiography that reminds you that misfortune is always beating against the window, attracted by the light of happiness' --Daily Mail
`One of the most devastatingly moving memoirs I've ever read...a work of beauty and truth' -- Independent
`...beautiful, harrowing and in every way remarkable.' -- New Statesman
'A book that, for all the brilliance of its author, doesn't seem completely aware of everything it has revealed.' -- Guardian
'...wonderful yet disturbing book... -- The Critics
"gripping and unexpected... this remarkable memoir, `a baton in the dark', which McWilliam bravely passes to the reader." --Literary Review
"Her long book yields an unmistakable human being, and is seldom disheartening, woes and all." --TLS
It's been too long since Candia McWilliam's last book... She has lost none of her grace of expression and freshness of thought. A remarkable and brave book. --The Observer
` Candia McWilliams has won this year's South Bank Sky Arts Awards literature prize with her What to Look for in Winter: A Memoir in Blindness, published by Jonathan Cape.' --The Bookseller writes,
'It's as if we're reading her thoughts unedited, which makes the many rhythmic, arresting passages all the more impressive. McWilliam doesn't hold back: she makes us feel how frightening it is inside her head. There's no sickly heroism. Resentful, muddles, undignified, unmoored, she is captivating'
--London Review of Books
`The most brutally honest and beautifully written account I have read of somebody's own failings and suffering' --Daily Mail
`What makes her memoir impressive isn't the story she has to tell - rich in drama though it is - but her artistry as a writer' --Independent
`magnificent memoir. Moving from her childhood in Edinburgh to the experimental surgery that restored her sight, the book is a triumph.'
--I
`An endlessly rewarding account'. --The Herald Arts Review
`McWilliam is such a good writer, this is an important and useful book'. --The Guardian