There is probably no better modern introduction to Burns' work . . . A triumph

Herald

Presents Burns as a poet infinitely worth reading

Daily Telegraph

People who find it hard to get into Burns have the answer to their prayers in this book . . . presented in a way that Burns himself would have enjoyed - letting the poems chime and rhyme with the debates that surround us in the world today
Ewan McGregor O'Hagan strips away the sentimentality which continues to cling to Burn's coat-tails and offers him to us at his very best - political, passionate, incisive and expressive - with biographical and textual notes that greatly enrich the reader's experience

Guardian

The way Burns sounded, his choice of words, his rhymes and metaphors, all that collapsed the distance I expected to feel between myself and the schoolbook poetry I encountered first at Anahorish Elementary School . . . He did not fail the Muse or us or himself as one of poetry's chosen instruments
Seamus Heaney Picking out his favourite Burns poems, [O'Hagan] explains why each of them still matters, either personally or politically, with the lucidity one has come to expect from one of the leading Scottish essayists and novelists of his generation

Scotsman