When future generations come to ask themselves when England lost it and what it lost, they will pick up The Paper Lantern' Michael Hofmann, TLS

'A remarkable achievement in a book that feels at once timely and deeply considered' Irish Times

'A book that speaks powerfully about what it is to be English and about the impact of coronavirus on our national psyche' Observer

'Will Burns is the new Defoe' Adelle Stripe

Set in a shuttered pub - The Paper Lantern - in a village in the very middle of the country adjacent to the Prime Minister's Chequers Estate, an unnamed narrator embarks on a series of walks in the Chiltern Hills. As he charts and interrogates the shifts in mood and understanding that have defined a transformative period in his own history and that of the surrounding area, he reveals a past scarred with trauma and a present lacking compass. Traversing local raves in secret valleys, to climate change and capitalism, The Paper Lantern creates a tangible, lived-in complicated rendering of a place, at the moment when the very sense of place itself is being questioned.

"A complex portrait of this small Buckinghamshire town and the odd twists of fate and place that bind people together... he's ended up achieving something quite rare, capturing the unique personality of the Home Counties, and the strangeness of how coronavirus might at once affect everything and nothing in a small Buckinghamshire town. This unique snapshot of time, place and particularly southern English sensibility is a critique made is all the better for being, in its own odd way, quietly celebratory. Perhaps even some of the Paper Lantern's regulars might raise a glass and agree." - THE QUIETUS

"This elegiac debut... exerts a steady power, opening an unexpected conduit into the national psyche." - DAILY MAIL

"Full of acute social observations, it's a time capsule in the making." - MAIL ON SUNDAY

"Individual moments are presented as opportunities to recognise the self, the savour our individuality in the world, to experience rather than merely endure" - Times Literary Supplement

"A remarkable achievement in a book that feels at once timely and deeply considered, an antidote to the clickbait, flashing headline style of journalism that has, perhaps understandably, proliferated during the pandemic. From the first page, the insights come hard and fast. There is a pared-back lyricism and clarity to the writing, commentary that is both intelligent and sensitive to the surrounding world . . . The backbone of The Paper Lantern is the author's searing way of detailing the inequalities and issues of modern society . . . There are meticulous arguments on climate change, capitalism and class, particularly the "dull and rapacious middle class" . . . The careful attention to nature and community echo the novels of Sarah Moss" - IRISH TIMES