Severed

Fascinating... lively, original, important, astounding, well-written: first class in every way * Sunday Times * Wonderfully original... a splendid example of plotting a new brand of history that cuts through conventional categories of science, literature and art -- Richard Fortey 'Book of the year' * TLS * Severed is clever, startling, profoundly informative, delightfully gruesome... Larson writes like an angel -- John Simpson Quirky, macabre and sometimes blackly funny... from heads as bizarre religious relics to the pseudo-science of phrenology, Larson has a wonderful eye for incongruous and sometimes horrifying details -- Domonic Sandbrook 'Book of the year' * Sunday Times * Scholarly yet sprightly... its curiosity and intellectual energy will haunt me - in a good way - for a long time -- James McConnachie 'Book of the Year' * Spectator * An elegant history... packed with bizarre and horrifying stories, fascinating facts and philosophical conundrums -- Suzi Feay * Independent on Sunday * Engaging and readable... Severed is a fascinating curio of a history -- Robbie Millen * The Times * Larson is alive to the delicacy of language, all the more appropriately given that much of what she describes is fascinatingly gruesome -- Nicholas Lezard * Evening Standard * Severed offers a scholarly, grimly amusing and possibly definitive survey of an often disquieting subject -- Lewis Jones * Spectator * A timely, disquieting, deeply thought-provoking and sometimes darkly funny history of decapitation -- Helen Castor 'Book of the Year' * Times Higher Education * An eloquent and provocative exploration of what the detached head means, one that reaches beyond today's desert atrocities into the core of human culture -- Andrew Harrison * New Statesman * This elegantly argued and grimly compelling cultural history examines how and why severed heads have such fascination * Daily Telegraph ***** * [A] wide-ranging and thoughtful book -- Mike Jay * Wall Street Journal * An ambitious book, stuffed full of curious information, intricate analysis, and grisly, gripping, Grand Guignol scenes -- Thomas Wright, author * Circulation * A brilliantly original exploration of what it is to be human, and of a visceral (or perhaps capital) fascination I recognised in myself from the moment I began to read. Her fluently sinuous prose is by turns meditative and disquieting - and always utterly compelling -- Helen Castor, author * She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth * A completely original and compelling book: the unnatural history of severed heads. Heads as prizes, heads as art, heads as objects of instruction, heads as symbols of triumph over enemies. Who could imagine that the seat of intelligence and learning could be preserved, abused, skewered and recycled in so many extraordinary ways? Frances Larson has written a unique history worthy of the great Roy Porter -- Richard Fortey, author * The Hidden Landscape and Life: An Unauthorised Biography * A uniquely fascinating and superlatively eloquent book on a disturbing but captivating subject. With a skilful blend of wit, insight and empathy, Larson explores the dark and largely uncharted world of severed heads to provide this powerful and illuminating book. [An] engrossing account of the fraught business of head-hunting takes our lazy notions of civilised society's superiority over so-called primitive cultures and - so to speak - turns them on their head -- Wendy Moore, author * Wedlock * Fabulously quirky and gorily entertaining * Bookseller * Larson's lively, conversational tone turns these morbid objects into something more meaningful than a mere expression of the macabre... wildly fascinating * Publishers Weekly * Compelling * Big Issue in the North * Surprising and engaging... Severed is not at all dry or simply academic... Larson is skilled at elucidating seemingly opposite perspectives - both repulsive and utterly fascinating -- Matthew J. Trafford * National Post * Elegantly argued and grimly compelling -- Robert Douglas-Fairhurst * Daily Telegraph * Larson's compelling and anecdotal study explores the grim fascination [of] severed heads * Sunday Telegraph * Fascinating -- Brian Dillon * Literary Review * A compelling historical narrative... Larson tells a very human account of an inhumane act -- Corinne Jones * Observer * More of a clever, sometimes playful, conversation than a conventional study... Larson wanders among the skulls with assurance and not a hint of a shiver * Independent * Appalling, astute and grimly relevant -- William Leith * Evening Standard * Lively, original, important, astounding, well-written: first class in every way -- James McConnachie * Sunday Times * Stuffed with extraordinary detail... Engaging [and] intelligent -- Robbie Millen * The Times * Engagingly quirky... Gruesome but fascinating -- Simon Shaw * Mail on Sunday * Meticulously researched... Objects and the stories they tell permeate Larson's work, and she has a talent for exploring the topic -- Anita Sethi * Observer * In this sparkling book, Larson looks at severed heads throughout history -- Julia Richardson * Daily Mail * Larson is a subtle reader of the meanings of such heads and skulls that both repel and fascinate us * Guardian *