The Big Necessity : Press reviews

‘An invaluable contribution’

Blake Morrison , Guardian

’Rose George's subject - the global politics of defecation - is both superbly indelicate and morally imperative. With the basic health and dignity of several billion poor people at stake, we need to take shit seriously in the most literal sense. Human solidarity, as she so passionately demonstrates, begins with the squatting multitudes.’

Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums

‘This fascinating, wise, calm and scrupulously drawn portrait of the world and its waste will last long as a seriously important book. Like a literary treatment farm, it manages to turn the completely unpalatable into something utterly irresistible. While reminding us coolly of our unacknowledged comfort in our own bathroom hideaways, it also rails at the distress of those far beyond the reach of clean white porcelain and petal-soft paper. Rose George, a brave, compassionate and ceaselessly impeccable reporter - and when needed, a very funny one too - has performed for us all who care a very great service. A big necessity, indeed.’

Simon Winchester, author of The Map That Changed the World, The Professor and The Madman, and Krakatoa

‘A revealing global study that's thoroughly researched and written with both wit and moral seriousness, is so good that no lav should be without a copy.’

Sukhdev Sandhu, Telegraph

‘In Rose George's hometown in England, impoverished immigrants took up residence in the new public latrines. ("Fighting over the more spacious disabled cubicle was fierce.") Which is worse? Living in a toilet or living without one? George bravely – and sometimes literally -- submerges herself in the tragedy and occasional comedy of global sanitation. Sludge, biogas, sewage: I ate up and wanted more! The most unforgettable book to pass through the publishing pipeline in years’

Mary Roach, author of Stiff and Bonk

‘George passionately believes we should take her subject seriously instead of being embarrassed by it… it will leave you grateful for our waterborne sewage system in the UK.’

The Times

'This engaging, highly readable book puts sanitation in its proper place - as a central challenge in human development. Those of us lucky enough to enjoy proper sanitation take it for granted... and typically would refer not to discuss it. But over 2.5 billion people - half the population of the developing world - have no sanitation facilities at all, with disastrous consequences for their health, economic opportunity, and basic human dignity. Rose George has tackled this critical topic with insight, wit, and a storyteller's knack for surfacing key issues through colorful accounts of sanitation pioneers from across the globe.'

Louis Boorstin, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

‘For daring to fling back the privy door, George deserves a medal.’

Sunday Times

‘Scatological history has never been so fascinating.’

Guardian

‘This is an extraordinary study in part because it focuses on an issue which we rarely discuss, or even give much thought to. George puts that down to one-part embarrassment and one-part taking our comforts for granted. Flushing loos aren't a luxury – they're a basic human right.’

Independent on Sunday

‘Excrement. Not a dinner-table topic, but perhaps it should be. Faeces-related diseases kill more people than TB, malaria or Aids. A fascinating history of sanitation.’

The Times

‘George reveals in this eye-opening guide to the world's sanitary habits, human waste is no laughing matter… [A] thought-provoking, character-filled book.’

Guardian

‘This is the first popular study written on the subject. And popular it deserves to be. Rose George has the right kind of breezy serious approach needed to grapple with the universal taboos about human waste and what happens to it and what sanitation can do to prevent it infecting us.’

Daily Mail

‘I never thought I’d want to read a book about s---, but this one proved me wrong.’

Telegraph

‘The fact that we spend, on average, three years of our lives on the lavatory makes Rose George’s attempt to explain our relationship with waste not only admirable, but necessary. With 2.6 billion people in the world living without basic sanitation, the book has an important political message. The author’s accounts of those living in poor parts of the world without this “fundamental human right” are provocative, highlighting our indifference to this everyday luxury.’

Daily Telegraph

‘[A] brave excursion round the U-bend of the excremental attitudes of the world.’

BBC Focus

‘Given the unappetising nature of her subject, her narrative is surprisingly tasteful and she successfully straddles a fine line between being scatological and silly and being humourless and self-righteous.’

Observer

‘[An] extraordinary investigation… George has made a valuable contribution to raising awareness about a crisis that causes more deaths than TB, Aids or malaria.’

Herald

‘Ms. George’s book covers nearly every aspect — political, social, biological, and moral— of how the world thinks about and copes with human excreta… Ms. George is the kind of writer — tenacious and clever — who will put you in mind of both Jessica Mitford (in her exposé “The American Way of Death”) and Erin Brockovich. She is angry about what she discovers, and she offers the kind of memorable details that make her points stick.’

New York Times

‘Strangely fascinating… Rose George travels widely in pursuit of the truth about toilets… There are plenty [of] enjoyable nuggets and anecdotes here.’

Literary Review

‘George makes a good case for the way that even simple sanitation projects can transform people’s lives.’

Evening Standard

‘Human excrement is not an easy subject for author or reader. Rose George wants to prove her case in detail… She has done her best to… deal with "the global politics of defecation" taking her to places most of us would fear to tread.’

Scotland on Sunday

‘A surprisingly entertaining and thought-provoking book’

Morning Star

‘Crusading journalism’

Metro

‘George’s anecdotal and highly readable account breaks through the wall of euphemisms we’ve built around this taboo subject.’

Time Out

‘Rose George has written a tactful, outspoken, amusing, shocking, highly informative and useful book. It may even - if you read it carefully - change your life.’

Telegraph

‘Rose George explains in this fascinating and eloquent book that there is a great deal that needs to be said about excretion that is not remotely funny... A frank and illuminating look at a generally neglected, but very important aspect of human life.’

Economist

‘An invaluable insight into a vital issue’

Financial Times

‘The Big Necessity should become a classic… With wit and style, she goes to sewage school, ventures into the sewers of London and New York, attends international toilet conferences and visits cities, villages, townships and slums in Africa, Europe, the United States, India, Japan and China… valuable and often entertaining’

Los Angeles Times

‘Its array of fascinating and funny facts – the product of wide research – make it an ideal loo-seat read.’

Time Out

‘The Big Necessity belongs in a rare handful of studies that take a subject that seems fixed and familiar and taboo and makes us understand it is historically contingent and dazzlingly intriguing. Jessica Mitford did it with her classic study The American Way of Death; Michel Foucault did it with Madness and Civilization. Rose George has produced their equal: a gleaming toilet manifesto for humankind.’

Slate

‘A masterly and intelligent work of reportage from a woman who, in the course of her research, has sat and squatted from Dar es salaam to London, Johannesburg to Chengdu, Mumbai to Moscow… George passes up few chances to entertain and elucidate in this new must-have for every toilet bookshelf.’

New Scientist

‘George unearths some startling, stomach-churning, quirky and tragic facts about a function that is basic to our everyday lives.’

Lancashire Evening Post

'Righteously indiscreet and humane exploration of the global politics of human defecation... George fundamentally believes that the way a society disposes of human excrement is an indication of how it treats its humans.'

New Statesman

‘George's lucid, intrepid book of globe-spanning reportage not only sustains this apparently mundane subject for 304 pages, but it also leaves a reader both outraged and unexpectedly inspired… It is a striking book.’

San Francisco Chronicle

‘Rose’s scatological travelogue is deft, politically passionate and always intriguing.’

Times Higher Education

‘It’s grimly fascinating.’

Word Magazine

‘I gained a fair amount of knowledge from Rose George's excellent book, on a subject that certainly needs more exposure than it usually gets… it's an excellent read with surprises at every turn - or should that be in every U-bend?'

Popular Science

‘George is thankfully a no-nonsense kind of woman – she can be funny as well as serious and her interest in the subject knows no bounds.’

Bookseller

‘Rose George addresses the politics of defecation using her journalist's nose for a good story.'

Good Book Guide

'Drink, Eat, Pee and Poo are the Big Necessity of Quality Living. The World Toilet Organization is proud to be associated with a brave research writer like Rose George in our effort to break the taboo on toilets globally.
Like an award-winning photographer who'd risk anything to get the right pictures, Rose belongs to an exceptional breed of human beings who is willing to go through the most difficult conditions and years of travels in her search of the truth to tell you the real stories of the real world of sanitation. The Big Necessity is a book that will inform, educate, entertain and bring you the truth on sanitation, so unbearable that I hope will propel you into action to make the toilet a better place for everyone to enjoy.'

Jack Sim, Founder of World Toilet Organization

‘[An] exhaustive read about how human waste, and how it’s disposed of responsibly, has become a “privilege not a right” for 2.6 billion people around the world. A literal stomach-churning subject, but one that deserves more attention than it gets’

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