a pilgrimage of sorts

The White Road

A Journey Into Obsession

The gripping story of the lure of porcelain, or 'white gold', from the Number One bestselling author of The Hare with Amber Eyes

Sweeping in scope ... intimate in detail ... The White Road is a mesmirising and finely wrought work. It is also a cautionary tale about the price of beauty pursued at any cost.

I loved almost every word of de Waal's book. ... De Waal is intimate with the very stuff that he has tranformed so beautifully into pots; intimate with its history; intimate with the characters who make up its story. And yes, by the end, if this sort of elbow-grabbing book works for you - which it did triumphantly for me - he in intimate with his readers too

Graceful and insightful… this book is certainly the finest account of the many meanings of porcelain to the modern world that I have read

This book is a history of the making of porcelain – its discovery and rediscovery – from ancient China to Dachau. ... Mixed in with this history is a kind of autobiographical account of de Waal's own work. He says he thinks with his hands, and he is amazingly skilled at telling us what is happening as he feels the clay, turns the wheel, unloads the kiln.

This is the most personal sort of book one can read: an account of a love affair. ... You learn everything you could possibly need to know about porcelain. ... You don't want to stop reading, because de Waal, with his sharp curator's eye, has excellent judgment when it comes to showing readers things that they will find fascinating, funny or moving.

De Waal writes beautifully, wears his learning lightly and charmingly and makes sure anyone and everyone will care deeply about the white stuff too.

Edmund de Waal's The Hare with Amber Eyes, the story of a collection of netsuke owned by his relatives, was a surprise bestseller. ... This account of china clay should claim an even greater readership. It deserves to. It is an even better book. I already have it marked down as my book of the year.

Edmund de Waal's poetic book is like a porcelain cup richly and delicately painted with the story of a mysterious substance and an alchemical art that have combined to enrich, enchant and sometimes ruin aficionados and artists alike.

This is a haunting book, a book that amasses itself piece by piece, gaining in weight.

Edmund de Waal has a way of making you care about handmade ceramics in a way no other writer does

A single porcelain pot is sufficiently beautiful to behold, as is this dramatic, gloriously theatrical and irresistibly passionate pilgrimage into a dark hall of mirrors

A quirky memoir that engagingly weaves together a history of porcelain with his personal history

A compelling and thoroughly absorbing amalgam of history, autobiography, travelogue and philosophical ruminations on the nature of creativity and many other things besides

De Waal…sees the world in a shard of white porcelain, thoughtfully and poetically tracing its invention and material production from imperial China through medieval Europe, and Cherokee creeks to the satanic factories of Nazi Germany.  Global cultural history, structural and individual: this should be a humanising core text on the now sadly abandoned liberal arts curriculum.

An intimate and lyrical writer with a sophisticated grasp of cultural history… De Waal’s prose thrives on exchanges of curiousity… The White Road feels like a long book, and a long book may sometimes have qualities peculiar to its size. It may be by turns capricious, slow-drifting, and affected. It may yet enlarge your world.

A stylishly written account with a surprisingly spiritual dimension. Engrossing.

De Waal’s charm lies in his ability to undertake obsessive research, to pile up and accrue, to involve the reader in almost frantic travelling, note-taking and reading. There’s no doubting that The White Road is a mighty achievement.

His enthusiasm is infectious... This is not just about one ancient industry – somehow, superbly, it's about industry itself

Edmund de Waal is an artist whose porcelain is exhibited in museums and galleries around the world. His bestselling memoir, The Hare with Amber Eyes, won the RSL Ondaatje prize and the Costa Biography Award and in 2015 he was awarded the Windham-Campbell prize for non-fiction by Yale University. The White Road, a journey into the history of porcelain, was published in 2015. He lives in London with his family. 
 
www.edmunddewaal.com

The gripping story of the lure of porcelain, or 'white gold', from the Number One bestselling author of The Hare with Amber Eyes. 
 
** A Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller ** 
 
 "Other things in the world are white but for me porcelain comes first" 
 
 A handful of clay from a Chinese hillside carries a promise: that mixed with the right materials, it might survive the fire of the kiln, and fuse into porcelain - translucent, luminous, white. 
 
 Acclaimed writer and potter Edmund de Waal sets out on a quest - a journey that begins in the dusty city of Jingdezhen in China and travels on to Venice, Versailles, Dublin, Dresden, the Appalachian Mountains of South Carolina and the hills of Cornwall to tell the history of porcelain. Along the way, he meets the witnesses to its creation; those who were inspired, made rich or heartsick by it, and the many whose livelihoods, minds and bodies were broken by this obsession. It spans a thousand years and reaches into some of the most tragic moments of recent times. 
 
 In these intimate and compelling encounters with the people and landscapes who made porcelain, Edmund de Waal enriches his understanding of this rare material, the 'white gold' he has worked with for decades. 
 
'This is a haunting book, a book that amasses itself piece by piece, gaining in weight.' Olivia Laing, New Statesman 
 
'A mighty achievement' Guardian

The Illustrated Edition

The Hare With Amber Eyes

An utterly irresistible illustrated edition of the No 1 bestselling and prizewinning memoir, with over 120 full-colour images

The book not only of the year, but of the decade... A quite enchanting book, to be kept and reread by as many generations as it describes

The most brilliant book I've read for years... A rich tale of the pleasure and pains of what it is to be human

Part treasure hunt, part family saga, Edmund de Waal's richly original memoir spans nearly two centuries... Combines all the charm of a personal memoir with the resonance of world history.

The most enchanting history lesson imaginable

The book not only of the year, but of the decade

As full of beauty and whimsy as a netsuke from the hands of a master carver

A meditation on touch, exile, space and the responsibility of inheritance... You have in your hands a masterpiece

Few writers have ever brought more perception, wonder and dignity to a family story as has Edward de Waal

An intensely personal meditation on art, history and family, told in prose as elegant and precise as the netsuke themselves.

A writer of great elegance and insight... De Waal tells this story with consummate style and erudition... Engrossing

The most beautiful book I've read this year

The book not only of the year, but of the decade... a quite enchanting book, to be kept and reread by as many generations as it describes.

Both the story he uncovers and the objects he describes are fascinating and startling

A brilliantly constructed picture of vanished worlds

The perfect book, one you feel compelled to give to everyone... to share with them this treasure

An exquisitely described search for a lost family and a lost time. From the moment you open the book you are in an old Europe fully re-created

Unexpectedly combines a micro craft-form with macro history to great effect

The best book of the year... a memorable account, written with exemplary modesty

Edmund de Waal is one of the world's leading ceramic artists, and his porcelain is held in many major museum collections. His bestselling memoir, The Hare with Amber Eyes won the Costa Biography Award and the RSL Ondaatje Prize. It was also shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize, the Jewish Quarterly Wingate Prize, the PEN/Ackerley Prize and the Southbank Sky Arts Award for Literature. It was longlisted for the Orwell Prize and BBC Samuel Johnson Prize. Edmund was named New Writer of the Year at the 2010 Galaxy National Book Awards. 
 
www.edmunddewaal.com

The definitive illustrated edition of the international bestseller with gorgeous new photography of the celebrated netsuke collection, and sumptuous full-colour images hand-picked by Edmund de Waal from his family archive 
 
264 Japanese wood and ivory carvings, none of them bigger than a matchbox: Edmund de Waal was entranced when he first encountered the collection in his great-uncle Iggie's Tokyo apartment. When he later inherited the 'netsuke', they unlocked a story far larger and more dramatic than he could ever have imagined. From a burgeoning empire in Odessa to fin de siècle Paris, from occupied Vienna to post-war Tokyo, Edmund de Waal traces the netsuke's journey through generations of his remarkable family against the backdrop of a tumultuous century. 
 
This new enhanced ebook is bursting with extra content exclusive to this edition. There are five videos including one of Edmund de Waal discussing the netsuke collection, another of the Paris opera house much frequented by Charles Ephrussi, and a third takes a visit to the sumptuous Palais Ephrussi in Vienna. There is music from Vienna and Tokyo to listen to as you read, a new essay from the author about this illustrated edition, and the full album of Secessionist watercolours painted especially for the family. There is a very moving recording of Edmund de Waal reading the final chapter and lastly, there are the netsuke themselves. Individually animated and intimately displayed, this edition allows each netsuke comes to life, as if you were holding it in the palm of your hand.

The #1 Sunday Times Bestseller

The history of a family through 264 objects - set against a turbulent century - from an acclaimed writer and potter

**WINNER OF THE COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD** 
 
Edmund de Waal uncovers the history of a family through a turbulent century through 264 objects. 
 
264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them bigger than a matchbox: Edmund de Waal was entranced when he first encountered the collection in his great uncle Iggie's Tokyo apartment. When he later inherited the 'netsuke', they unlocked a story far larger and more dramatic than he could ever have imagined. 
 
From a burgeoning empire in Odessa to fin de siecle Paris, from occupied Vienna to Tokyo, Edmund de Waal traces the netsuke's journey through generations of his remarkable family against the backdrop of a tumultuous century. 
 
'You have in your hands a masterpiece' Sunday Times 
 
'The most brilliant book I've read for years... A rich tale of the pleasure and pains of what it is to be human' Daily Telegraph 
 
**ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY*

In a decade where memoir became the dominant genre, this immensely evocative family history told via the journey through the generations of some Japanese miniature figures stood out

An evocative narrative of art, inheritance and loss

From a hard and vast archival mass...Mr de Waal has fashioned, stroke by minuscule stroke, a book as fresh with detail as if it had been written from life, and as full of beauty and whimsy as a netsuke from the hands of a master carver.

This remarkable book... a meditation on touch, exile, space and the responsibility of inheritance... like the netsuke themselves, this book is impossible to put down. you have in your hands a masterpiece.

Few writers have ever brought more perception, wonder and dignity to a family story as has Edmund de Waal in a narrative that beguiles from the opening sentence

Part treasure hunt, part family saga, Edmund de Waal's richly original memoir spans nearly two centuries and covers half the world

A book that combines the charm of a personal memoir with the resonance of world history.

[de Waal) weaves together with great delicacy various strands of the lives of a glamorous dynasty

The miracle of this book is that, by the end, we do learn the itinerant life of this collection. How did the netsuke escape the Gestapo? How did they return to the family and move to Tokyo? The answers, like much in this book, are incredible

Unputdownable, exquisitely crafted family memoir about the fortuned of a collection of Japanese figurines

Objects have always been... stolen, retrieved and lost. It is how you tell their story that really matters." He has told their story wonderfully. Oh, and this is a beautiful and unusual book, as a physical object. Someone really cared.

This book (is) every bit as exquisite as the diminutive sculptures that inspired it

An intensely personal meditation on art, history and family, told in prose as elegant and precise as the netsuke themselves.

This is a highly unusual and thought-provoking book... reading it is a window on a fresh way of looking at the world

There are many remarkable insights in The Hare with Amber Eyes, not least de Waal's nuanced account of the eroticized nature of French Japonisme. But a central haunting theme is European anti-Semitism, and its end-game.

...a self-questioning, witty, sharply perceptive book, shaped as a series of journeys... by writing objects into his family history he has achieved something remarkable.

It's the most beautiful book I've read this year

Showed that what counts in a memoir is not experience alone, but intelligence and an ability to write

The best book of the year was The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal... The extraordinary history of these tiny objects encompasses many changes of habitat. This is a memorable account, written with exemplary modesty.

The Hare with Amber Eyes beautifully evokes the rise and fall of a Jewish baning family, from 19th-century Russia to fin de siècle Paris and Vienna, and their dispersal during the Nazi years.

I also enjoyed The Hare with Amber Eyes for the quality of the writing and the evocation of a Europe that was destroyed

It is a rich tale of the pleasure and pains of what it is to be human.

A short lingering memoir by one of Britain's leading potters.

Part treasure hunt, part family saga, this is the haunting story of a unique collection of Japanese figurines.

There was no supper during the week I could not stop reading it, then for weeks afterwards I could talk of nothing else. It was simply enchanting

An exquisitely described search for a lost family and a lost time. From the moment you open the book you are in an old Europe fully re-created.

His delightful memoir on the cross-continental travelsof this collection is suffused with absolute conviction in art's central place in life.

Both the story he uncovers and the objects he describes are fascinating and startling.

Unexpectedly combines a micro craft-form with macro history to great effect.

I was moved and excited by Edmund de Waal's The Hare with Amber Eyes.

intensely mannered in style... a remarkable narrative

Made the hunt for a collection of rare netsuke the spine of a far-reaching family history that melds the pursuit of beautiful art with the flight from atrocious history.

It is not often that a family saga leaves readers panting for the new ceramics galleries at the V&amp;A.

The most brilliant book I've read for years. Part memoir, part-history, it traces a collection of beautiful Japanese netsukes left to the author

Edmund de Waal's memoir-cum-cultural enquiry, chosen by several of our contributors, and described by one as the "book not only of the year, but of the decade"

A beautiful piece of writing, mixing family memoir, cultural history, travel narrative and nuanced observation of miniature curiosities.

Times Literary Supplement, Christmas round up

An extraordinary and touching journey with a backdrop glittering with images from Proute and Zola and Klimt.

The book not only of the year, but of the decade... a quite enchanting book, to be kept and rearead by as many generations as it describes.

Every page of Edmund de Waal's The Hare with Amber Eyes gave me pleasure.

A beautiful and touching story delivered in prose as spare and well judged as a line of De Waal's own porcelain pots.

I know of no more effective description of the accumulated meanings, the symbolic freight, of ownership

A magical study of how objects get handled, used and handed on

The most exquisite and intriguing memoir of the year

One of the most impressive history books this year.... An intense journey through the heartache of political and racial upheaval in 19th and 20th-century Europe

I don't know how this memoir can be surpassed. The writing is simple and powerful, the craftsman in Mr de Waal (a potter) warms to the beauty of the netsuke

An intensely personal meditation on art, history and family, told in prose as elegant and precise as the netsuke themselves

The story he tells is as exquisitely rendered as the netsuke themselves

Unputdownable, exquisitely crafted memoir

Edmund de Waal

I was deeply moved... De Waal has found a way to meditate on exile, migration and polarisation that feels painfully relevant

This is a marvellous book, elegant, tender, loving, appreciative, disturbing, a reminder of both the fragility and resilience of high culture, indeed civilisation

De Waal is a writer of grace and restlessly enquiring intelligence, and Letters to Camondo succeeds admirably... Edmund de Waal's beautiful book opens a window onto an entire lost world

De Waal's sentences like to take the historical weight of the objects he describes... An unforgettable book

It will make you think differently about trunks in the attic and it will make you read old letters with new eyes

Consistently illuminating... excellently illustrated... De Waal's excavation of the meanings of assimilation is considered, compassionate and appreciative of its costs... he is a wise guide to people and things that are dispersed and are collected... This book is a wonderful tribute to a family and to an idea

More than chronicling the [Camondo] family's splendor and tragic end, de Waal has created a deeply hued tapestry of a lost time and a poetic meditation on grief, memory, and the fragile consolation of art... A radiant family history.

Letters to Camondo immerses you in another age - one as sharply torn with rifts and bigotry, political uncertainty and changing fortunes as our own - but also a time of grace and the deliberate cultivation of pleasure... de Waal creates a dazzling picture of what it means to live graciously

Letters to Camondo... is subtle and thoughtful and nuanced and quiet. It is demanding but rewarding. It will make you think differently about trunks in the attic and it will make you read old letters with new eyes

I was deeply moved... [de Waal] has found a way to meditate on exile, migration and polarisation that feels painfully relevant

This is a marvellous book, elegant, tender, loving, appreciative, disturbing, a reminder of both the fragility and resilience of high culture, indeed civilisation

A slim elegant volume of beautifully written letters

Letters to Camondo tells de Waal's version of the Camondo story... layers of memories, hopes, fears embedded in the Musée Camondo brought alive...remarkable

Moving... beautifully produced... I visited the Musee Nissim de Camondo some dozen years ago. Now I long to go back

De Waal's ability to conjure up the personality of a character long dead through his possessions is a joy... A moving picture of the Jewish condition in Europe, always ready for flight once the scapegoating begins again, is made starkly apparent... In de Waal's hands objects stand for much bigger truths, of questions of loss and injustice

Enchanting... the prose is immaculately polished. [Edmund de Waal's] intelligence and scholarship are fastidious, his sensibility quivers like the wings of a hummingbird

De Waal's elegant prose, rapt eye for aesthetics, subtle character sketches, and nuanced musings on Jewish identity yield a rich, Proustian recreation of a lost era

de Waal's history, gives Letters to Camondo an undeniable emotional intensity

de Waal is a writer of grace and restlessly enquiring intelligence, and Letters to Camondo succeeds admirably... Edmund de Waal's beautiful book opens a window onto an entire lost world

A rich and gorgeous meditation on art and grief... Beautifully written, elegantly odd and wonderfully immersive, this is a book like no other

De Waal's sentences like to take the historical weight of the objects he describes, in prose that often puts you in mind of Bruce Chatwin, that other aesthete magically in thrall to painfully buried European history. He builds a picture of Camondo accumulating belongings in an extravagant effort at belonging... [an] unforgettable book

De Waal's gentle and thoughtful probing is persuasive and his exploration of the family history after the count's death in 1935 - especially the deaths of family members under the Nazis - is both poignant and unforced

The form of a series of letters to Camondo... [is] an inspired idea, for it allows de Waal to achieve an intimacy of tone and directness of expression... a powerful address that is both a rupture with and a binding to all that precedes it

A fascinating portrait of the French collector Count Moise de Camondo

‘Immerses you in another age’ Financial Times

From the author of the bestselling phenomenon The Hare with Amber Eyes 
 
As you may have guessed by now, I am not in your house by accident. I know your street rather well. 
 
 The Camondos lived just a few doors away from Edmund de Waal's forebears. Like de Waal's family, they were part of belle époque high society. They were also targets of anti-Semitism. 
 
Count Moïse de Camondo created a spectacular house filled with art for his son to inherit. Over a century later, de Waal explores the lavish rooms and detailed archives and, in a haunting series of letters addressed to Camondo, he tells us what happened next. 
 
'Illuminating... A wonderful tribute to a family and to an idea' Guardian 
 
'Letters to Camondo immerses you in another age... Dazzling' Financial Times

Edmund de Waal

Praise for Letters to Camondo

I was deeply moved... De Waal has found a way to meditate on exile, migration and polarisation that feels painfully relevant

This is a marvellous book, elegant, tender, loving, appreciative, disturbing, a reminder of both the fragility and resilience of high culture, indeed civilisation

De Waal is a writer of grace and restlessly enquiring intelligence, and Letters to Camondo succeeds admirably... Edmund de Waal's beautiful book opens a window onto an entire lost world

I was deeply moved... De Waal has found a way to meditate on exile, migration and polarisation that feels painfully relevant

This is a marvellous book, elegant, tender, loving, appreciative, disturbing, a reminder of both the fragility and resilience of high culture, indeed civilisation

De Waal is a writer of grace and restlessly enquiring intelligence, and Letters to Camondo succeeds admirably... Edmund de Waal's beautiful book opens a window onto an entire lost world

I was deeply moved... De Waal has found a way to meditate on exile, migration and polarisation that feels painfully relevant

This is a marvellous book, elegant, tender, loving, appreciative, disturbing, a reminder of both the fragility and resilience of high culture, indeed civilisation

De Waal is a writer of grace and restlessly enquiring intelligence, and Letters to Camondo succeeds admirably... Edmund de Waal's beautiful book opens a window onto an entire lost world

Books by Edmund de Waal

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