"This is travel writing at its best. As a boy, Chatwin was fascinated by a dried-up piece of skin and hair, said to be from a brontosaurus brought back from Patagonia by a distant cousin and and kept in a glass-fronted cabinet in his grandmother’s dining room. Chatwin’s musings about the brontosaurus eventually led to a trek through Patagonia described in ninety-seven brief chapters filled with sharp observations and crystal-clear prose, gem-like entries in a brilliant diary. The narrative meanders, just as Chatwin did on his journey. Passages describing the stark landscape are juxtaposed with profiles of people encountered, nuggets of historical lore, and the details of rugged overland travel. Readers who insist on a traditional narrative thread might be disappointed, even put off. But for me, Chatwin evokes a serene curiosity that I find ingratiating."

"The funniest human being in my lifetime, in any medium – whether it's stand-up, television, theatre, prose, or movies – is SJ Perelman. The early stuff was a little wild, not nearly as subtle or as good. As he developed over the years, his stuff became relentlessly sensational. There are many collections of Perelman that are filled with great things. This one, which I wrote the foreword to, has a number of spectacular pieces. Because the editors did it chronologically, my own opinion is that the first four essays are weaker. Once you hit the fifth casual, as the New Yorker called them, he hits his stride and the rest of them are absolute comic genius. As funny as you can get. Those of us who grew up with Perelman found it impossible to avoid his influence. He had such a strong, inventive style."

"Call it Extreme Southern Gothic, New Orleans division. The protagonists of this dark French Quarter novel are knee-deep in murder, torture, sex and cannibalism. The story is unabashedly grim (or as Brite himself puts it, “twisted, horrific”), but Brite’s prose is crystal clear, and his literate tone is sufficiently wry and ironic that it creates a sort of safety zone in which readers not normally drawn to this sort of stuff (myself included) can take refuge while they read. But even arm’s-length readers are apt to find themselves being drawn further and further into the story—seduced in spite of the themselves. Material that would be merely sick, disgusting, and unreadable in the hands of a lesser writer is, with Brite at the controls, surprisingly erotic and captivating. It’s a tour de force, in a literary category all by itself."

"Toni Morrison’s miraculous prose is a show-stopper in this novel. It is the first time I remember being awestruck by an author’s talent. The blunt, colloquial dialogue punctuating a more nimble and filigreed narration style is a rhythm I have borrowed from heavily in my own work. Her ability to embrace the supernatural while never straying far from the familiar imbues the story with a fairy-tale quality in the old school sense, where horror shadows everyday life and wonder awaits you just around the corner. I grew up in Cincinnati, and my grandparents’ home in Indian Hill had a false wall for harboring men and women fleeing slavery in Kentucky. I felt deeply connected to this book, as if I were reading it as a member of Sethe and Denver’s troubled household in their tightly woven African-American community."