A Number of Things: Stories of Canada Told Through Fifty Objects - Tapa blanda

“[Urquhart] writes with an ethereal, emotional tangibility that is both nostalgic and energetic.” (The Globe and Mail)

“Urquhart’s skill with words provides some wonderful imagery [in A Number of Things].” (Quill & Quire)

“The most compelling depiction of the sense of place in human lives.” (Alice Munro)

“Urquhart writes with a clear, sensuous poetry, locating her imagery in the watery Irish coastline, the wilderness forests of Upper Canada, and a developing urban sprawl on the banks of Lake Ontario.” (The Times Literary Supplement)

“Urquhart shares Davies’ fascination with the roots of creativity and Carol Shields’ bent for tracing the long arc of character’s fateful transit through time. But she possessed a tartly distinctive voice of her own. It is poetic but not self-indulgent, ironic but not arch.” (New York Newsday)

“Urquhart’s prose is pure gold, the kind that inspires. It has stunning imagery that revitalizes the familiar or illuminates what’s often overlooked.” (The Winnipeg Free Press)

“Measured, dignified, calm on the surface, but containing as much thematic richness and pure literary pleasure as a reader could care to dig for . . .” (Montreal Gazette)

“Urquhart has a great gift for the historical novel, for the melding of ideas, events and individuals into a significant whole. Hugely compelling and illuminating.” (Claire Messud, author of The Emperor’s Children)

“Poignant, lilting, and emotionally true . . . Urquhart creates her own spell with language.” (Chicago Tribune)

“Urquhart’s eerie, intense meditations about damaged seekers tracking salvation balance personal chaos with wider reflections on life and loss achieving an odd beauty and unsettling urgency.” (The Irish Times)