Breakfast at Sotheby's

'Reading it is like participating in a hugely enjoyable personal tutorial given by a cultured, witty, clear-eyed, world teacher with a fully functioning sense of humour. A real delight' - Spectator

'Hook's view of the art world is that of the professional auctioneer. In an A-Z format, it is an entire art education contained in under 350 pages. Wry, dry and completely beguiling' - William Boyd, Guardian, Books of the Year

'How to nail the mad, bad, crazy contemporary art world in print? Sotheby's senior director Hook draws on 35 years' experience in this informal memoir. He unravels, with humour, piquancy and erudition, what drives the economics of taste' - Financial Times, Books of the Year

'It's very hard to write an amusing book about art that has some serious things to say. But Philip Hook has done it' - Sunday Times, Books of the Year

'An auctioneer's alphabet of quirky reflections and off-beat lists such as 'middle-brow artists' and 'fictional artists': an ideal volume for the art-lover's bedside' - Martin Gayford, Spectator, Books of the Year