Press Reviews

• Florian Gadsby

  Clay is a joy to read... it made me want to learn to be a potter all over again

• Vashti Bunyan

  I thought I knew a lot about pottery, but I didn't, not as much as I do now. From the earliest earthenware to the history of porcelain, along with the author's own progress working with different clays and glazes, I have loved learning from every chapter in this beautiful and affecting book

• Brian Eno

  I read this book and immediately went out to buy some clay. Fascinating and powerful

• Katherine May, author of Enchantment

  An engrossing history of the deep connection between humans and clay, electrified by a ceramicist's passion

• Jennifer Higgie, author of The Mirror and the Palette

  Jennifer Lucy Allan - an amateur potter herself - has written a mesmerising history of the practical, spiritual and artistic uses of clay, a deceptively simple material that has, in many ways, helped shape human history. Ranging across time and place, this wonderful book opens up a world of wonder. I learned so much from it - and couldn't put it down

• Heather Leigh

  Alchemical, magical, alive: Clay inspires me to make things; a deeply engaging work about artists and their process, told through the stories of true outsiders and eccentrics, including Allan herself, whose vibrant and visceral musical language made me completely obsessed with a subject I knew nothing about

• Caught by the River

  Allan's writing goes beyond the physical, revealing not only how we shape and adapt clay, but the profound meaning at the heart of it . . . will inspire you to look upon your pots with new insight

• Ceramic Review

  A captivating exploration of humanity's relationship with the material . . . this book is a love letter to clay

• Saga Magazine

  An absorbing work from such an original, enthusiastic writer

• Crafts Magazine

  It is this freshness of perspective, a new slant on a familiar medium, that makes Clay so compelling