“This is far and away the best book about the Pacific of our times. Julian Evans is the Robert Louis Stevenson of the post-nuclear Pacific”
Norman Lewis
“This remarkable travel book… Evans’ close attention to human detail brings out the complexity of modern Pacific life and offers occasional glimpses of the paradise it might have been”
Adam Nicolson, Sunday Times
“This gem of a book… Evans describes memorably an assortment of villains and comedians for whom only the South Pacific can provide a home. His prose is magical, his wit gentle, his stories eminently repeatable, his touch sure and graceful”
Simon Winchester, Guardian
“Julian Evans is a meticulous, vivid writer… honest and shrewd: a first-rate reporter”
Michael Thompson-Noel, Financial Times
“Brilliant… a wickedly sardonic account… the best travel book I’ve read in years”
Bruce Palling, Tatler
“Probably the best modern travelogue about the Pacific”
Michelle Bennett, Lonely Planet Samoan Islands
“Evans’s writing [is] jaundiced but sharp, quick to tick off the mess that’s been made of things but still attentive to those too-few moments when the old dream of islands asserts itself… Transit of Venus presents a vivid inventory of corruption and loss”
Times Literary Supplement
“ Transit of Venus is a fascinating and humorous account of life in these delicate and complex island societies”
New York Times
“The ‘noble savages’ of the islands of the South Pacific now have money and alcohol, military bases, atomic explosions and a good deal of Christianity…. Traveling on a slow boat through the islands, Evans documents in sorrowful detail, interspersed with excellent historical background, the loss of innocence”
Publishers Weekly
