A Time to Keep Silence. This item is unavailable.A Time to Keep Silence

Those who know the author as a man of action and a travel writer of distinction will find here a different kind of journey but with the same fine art of description and reflection, for it is a graphic account of his travels to the Benedictine abbey of St Wandrille, the abbey of Solesmes, the Cistercian monastery of La Grande Trappe, and the rock monasteries of Cappadocia. Patrick Leigh Fermor includes his thoughts on the benefit of occasional retreat into the discipline and calm of the cloister.

The English language is still a superb instrument in the hands of a writer who has a virtuoso skill with words, a robust aesthetic passion, an indomitable curiosity and a rapturous historical imagination (Observer)

The genius of Patrick Leigh Fermor is a many splendoured thing. Soldier, traveller, writer, Phihellene ... he has already dazzled and delighted ... It is some time since more truth and beauty were distilled into a hundred pages (Stewart Perowne)

A brilliant book (Sunday Times)

Delightful ... His book is not only an admirable piece of travel writing; it is also a brilliant piece of human exploration (New Statesman)

Introspection, history, reportage have their balanced places in a well-written book ... measured and lucent (Sunday Times)

Patrick Leigh Fermor is a stylish, superb master of words, which he savours like the choicest vintage (The Times)

What a delight it is to read a book so beautifully and sensitively written (Observer)

A most successful attempt to portray the reactions of the man of the world (in the literal sense) when confronted with the monastic life (Daily Telegraph)

Delightful, lucidly written work of introspection that evokes the hardship and the rewards of the solitary life, as well as its beauty (The Glasgow Herald)

John Murray is doing the decent thing and reissuing all of Leigh Fermor's main books ... But what else would you expect from a publisher whose commitment to geography is such that for more than two centuries it has widened our understanding of the world? (Geographical Magazine)