Reflections on Blue Water, (Paperback)

This valedictory volume is the quintessence of [Alan] Ross a deft and deceptively airy set of literary wanderings through a part of the Mediterranean - the islands of the south-western coast of Italy - he had known since being demobilised from the Royal Navy at the end of the Second World War... Rosss memoir is a showcase for a supremely poetic sensibility and a naturally gifted writer with an unerring eye for detail reporting on his experience with an infectiously joyous lyricism. Eldon King Observer

A fund of associative literary information that could only have been amassed by a passionate reader. Gorky Ibsen Rilke DH Lawrence Walter Benjamin Pablo Neruda and scores more wrote in or near Ischia; Ross describes their books and their lives with detailed succinctness en route dipping in and out of his own thoughts and travel observations. Helen Simpson Guardian