'A wonderful mix of personal and cultural history, this is a profound and fascinating book' Alexander Masters 'Articulate, savage, poignant, engaged and vividly descriptive. Hanley is as outspoken as she is unsentimental, [and] she writes social policy as if it were a branch of war reporting' Simon Jenkins, Sunday Times 'An engrossing story of council housing since the war... An absorbing book' Roy Hattersley, The Times 'An odd and obsessive book... Hanley herself was lucky and escaped the grim estate she grew up on, which she describes (memorably) in passages that read more like Lorna Sage's Bad Blood or Andrea Ashworth's Once in a House on Fire than as a work of sociology.' Blake Morrison, Guardian 'This study of the rise and decline of council housing is fuelled by unusual passion and vision' Evening Standard 'An account of council housing [that is] not just readable but interesting and moving' Scotland on Sunday 'Hanley's vivid, powerful book is about a dream gone sour... Her descriptions of hopelessness, drunkenness and yobbery in Tower Hamlets cry out to be engraved by a new Hogarth' Independent 'A rich, thought-provoking book... The heart of it lies in her vivid descriptions of how the physical walls of council estates can create and sustain what she calls 'walls in the head'... She unflinchingly details the the effects of an isolated, insular, monotonous, monocultural environment... It's partly harrowing and partly cheering and it's a tale well worth keeping somewhere in mind the next time you're laughing at Vicky Pollard' Observer 'Estates, a journey through the world of British social housing, is both a history and a personal reckoning... Hanley's referential framework is ample, bringing in an international angle while not forgetting the very British nature of the story. On the personal side, the story is made compelling by her closeness to the subject and fascination with class structure' Financial Times 'Both a solid history of public housing for the working class and a touching first hand memoir... The beauty of Hanley's book is in its mixture of diligent research and vivid personal memoirs... Depending on your past you'll read it with a thrill of recognition or a sense of revelation. A tremendous debut' Word 'Both illuminating and beautifully written' Spectator * '(A) passionate and engaging book... I think Hanley's book is destined to create a watershed in British housing policy; it's a slow-burn version of BBC's famous Cathy Come Home, the devastating 1966 drama about the destruction of a family through poverty and lack of housing which raised the profile of Shelter, launched just two weeks after the play was shown' The Observer (Will Hutton)
