A Times (UK) Book of the Year • An Economist Best Book on Culture and Ideas

“Irene Vallejo has a writer's passion for books and a classicist's fascination with the way they came to be. She is also imaginative, lively and contemporary. In her hands written texts are not only a sensual pleasure, but living and frequently disruptive. . . . Ms Vallejo has a notable talent for evoking ancient scenes. Her description, for example, of the poet Martial returning to Spain from Rome, near the end of the book, is masterly.”―Economist

“A generous, sprawling work. . . . As much as a history of books, Papyrus is also a history of reading. . . . Include[s] harrowing accounts of how survivors in the gulag and the concentration camps learned to write whole books in their heads, priming themselves for the moment when they would have access to writing materials to tell their stories. . . . Exquisite. . . . Beautifully translated into English by Charlotte Whittle, who is able to convey both Vallejo’s passionate narrative presence and her synthesising intelligence.”—The Guardian

“Evocative. . . . On one level, Papyrus is the story of the invention of books . . . but on another, it is a memoir, a love song, a confessional and a manifesto. Vallejo fuses these strands seamlessly and polishes the surface until it shines. . . . Papyrus has been a surprise bestseller. It’s easy to see why: Vallejo is a novelist and she has a storyteller’s ability to animate her subjects. . . . Impressively rip-roaring. . . . She draws a six-thousand-year line from the clay tablets of Mesopotamia to the e-reader tablets of today and leaves her readers inspired, invigorated and sincerely grateful for the invention of the book.”—Telegraph (UK)