"This largely autobiographical novel has had deep meaning for me from the time that I first read it in the late ‘60s. It’s about a man coming to terms with who he is and the legacy that he wants to leave behind. It’s stunningly beautiful."

"‘Coventry are fuck all. They’ve got a shit team and shit support. Hitler had the right idea when he flattened the place.’ Yes, I was hooked from the opening sentences too. This is the most important English novel since Orwell put pen to paper."

"Feeling like your world is currently imploding? Here’s an I-couldn’t-put-it-down dystopian novel that makes the end of days kind of cheery (in the end). I just finished reading it, and am glad to have a place to sing its praises."

"This is a nuanced and powerful novel about growing up, the mother-daughter relationship, female identity, sexuality, cultural dissonance, privilege, poverty and the pernicious legacy of colonialism. Kincaid’s style is both immediate and headily intense. A glinting, multifaceted work within relatively so few pages."

"The one criticism I’ve read about this novel is that Emma isn’t particularly good or likable, but that’s beside the point. The sly, clever, eloquent Jane Austen is the one who is likable, and the reader is in exquisite company with her at all times."

"Forced to pick a single sci-fi novel I’ll go with this because, in ways even beyond most sci-fi, it is so far ahead of its time. You’re left believing entirely in the worlds she’s imagined, including a better version of this one."

"Wharton’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel fulfilled me deeply as a lover of period piece romances. Her characters showed me early on that love is as much a choice as it is a feeling, and the pull of family, society and tradition can be overbearing."

"New novel, 2020, The Index of Self-Destructive Acts, ranging from politics to baseball to mortality and sexuality, and what else is there? Family life, and this is also there, a work that gains momentum as it sweeps along, with an eloquent final page."