Praise for Albert and the Whale 'In Albert & the Whale he leads his readers off on a marvellously varied, vividly imaginative, seductively digressive adventure that traces the path of another colossus. this is a book to immerse you ' The Times , Book of the Week, Rachel Campell-Johnston 'Magnificent new book . Hoare's feeling for Dürer exceeds anything I have ever read . his greatest work yet' Observer , Book of the Week, Laura Cumming ' Marvellous, unaccountable book. This is a book like the stomach of a whale: capaciously ready to accommodate whatever disparate stuff comes its way' Literary Review 'Philip Hoare, best know for Leviathan, his discursive and personal book about whales, has written a very Sebaldian new book. In it, he traverses his own patch and sniffs out an assortment of seemingly unrelated themes - Albrecht Durer, cetaceans, Thomas Mann and David Bowie, a deformation of the hand, the death of his mother - and proceeds to reveal the single degree of separation between them. Enlightening ' Michael Prodger, Sunday Times ' Visionary : a tone poem put together from the lives of others, with detailed use of archives' Financial Times ' Mr Hoare's portrait glitters with arresting details . His readings of Dürer's work grow woozy with enthusiasm, dissolving into a kind of modernist poetry.

Readers who prefer their art history to have both feet on the ground might be unmoored; others will be intoxicated' Economist 'It's a summary-defying blend of art history, biography, nature writing and memoir . you can feel the delight he takes in being unbound by anything but his enthusiasms . He is alternately precise and concealing. His biographical sections are both elliptical and redolent of entire lives. His art criticism is often stirring' New York Times.