Praise for A Training School for Elephants: "Luminous. Reflective, watchful, calm, Roberts is such a vivid travel writer that you forget what a brilliant historian she is. She has the water-diviner's gift for stories in unlikely places. And then, through research in archives as well as on the ground, for uncovering sparky details that bring the story to life. Her conversations with everyone she meets, from hospitable nuns to a chief in a red fez, who pores over the original expedition maps with her at a Chinese restaurant in Dodoma, give her narrative a glow of sympathetic charm."-- The Guardian "Masterfully weaving adventure, intrigue and the darker truths of colonial ambition into a story as gripping as it is eye opening."--Levison Wood "A superb, thoughtful quest into the heart of Africa."--Cal Flyn, author of Islands of Abandonment "A cautionary tale from the early days of the Scramble for Africa, but poignant and scholarly too.

Roberts writes beautifully."--Thomas Pakenham, author of The Scramble for Africa "Deeply-researched. Brings to life a bizarre and long-forgotten story of Africa with empathy, intriguing encounters and memorable characters, not least the elephants themselves."--Luke Pepera, author of Motherland: A Journey through 500,000 Years of African Culture and Identity "Sophy Roberts brings history to life, tackling difficult, sensitive subjects with careful, exquisite prose. Unputdownable."--Mary Harper, author of Getting Somalia Wrong? "A rich, engrossing tapestry of greed and disregard for life, human and animal, that stretches across continents, and across time, from the late nineteenth century to this day. Few write as compellingly as Roberts, this is her as only she can write."--Amal Chatterjee, author of Across the Lakes "An incredible and illuminating tale, wonderfully told, as ever.

"--Ben Rawlence, author of Radio Congo Praise for Sophy Roberts: "A modern-day Freya Stark."-- Tatler "Roberts' writing is beguiling."-- The i "Roberts is a wonderfully lyrical writer."-- Observer "An author of courage, patience, erudition, and a sympathetic imagination."--Dervla Murphy Praise for The Lost Pianos of Siberia : "An extraordinary encounter with a wildly fascinating and astonishingly ill-known region . This is a wonderful book."-- Sunday Times "The ultimate quest for the oddest objects - pianos - in the most unlikely place - Siberia. But Roberts makes it much more than that, an elegant and nuanced journey through literature, through history, through music, murder and incarceration and revolution, through snow and ice and remoteness, to discover the human face of Siberia.

I loved this book."--Paul Theroux "An impressive exploration of Siberia's terrifying past."-- Guardian "An exuberant, eccentric journey through Russian vastness, European history and Russian culture, The Lost Pianos of Siberia is a quixotic quest, a picaresque travel adventure and a strange forgotten story, all wrapped into one fascinating book."--Simon Sebag-Montefiore "What shines through in this book is Roberts' genuine, humane affection for and fascination with the people she meets in Siberia."-- Literary Review.