Thought-provoking as well as fun, this is Pratchett at his most philosophical, with characters and situations sprung from ideas and games with language. And it celebrates the joy of the moment.

Nation has profound, subtle and original things to say about the interplay between tradition and knowledge, faith and questioning...It's funny, exciting, lighthearted and, like all the best comedy, very serious.

Terry Pratchett is an indisputable one-off...Nothing he writes is ever predictable - except that it will always be gloriously readable.

Pratchett's immensely entertaining new young adult novel, manages to be both thought-provoking and sweet... It's a wonderful story, by turns harrowing and triumphant.

The Miami-born writer renders the travails and delights of a...dreamlike world that leaves you intoxicated and slightly dishevelled

When you start reading a book, it's either sink or swim. With Karen Russell's Swamplandia, set in the alligator-infested Florida Everglades, we dove right in and never came up for air... Russell deftly dips into several story lines. And though she trolls some pretty dark waters (abandonment, consumerism, hungry swamp things), there's magic in discovering how everyone stays afloat

Russell details peculiarities about the alligators (known as Seths) to fascinating effect and skillfully satirizes the greed and fraudulence of entertainment corporations

The book certainly abounds in clever and striking images: alligators have "icicle overbites" and Hilola's children "watch her sink into her own face" as she dies of cancer

Russell's primeval imaginings and gutsy language lurk long in the memory

The novel packs a genuine punch

[Russell] is certainly very talented...This novel has already received great reviews...and it's easy to see why. Many of her descriptions are quite dazzling

Her imagination is undoubtedly of unbounded proportions, and she creates a refreshingly unique community and seductively charms the reader...[Russell] is a refreshing change from the usual.

Ava's narrative occupies fertile territory half-way between realism and fantasy, innocence and experience... Russell leaves just enough for us to question our reading of events, so that when the scales fall from Ava's eyes we are implicated in her naivety

We unanimously loved it - to the point where words like 'genius' and 'masterpiece' were being bandied around. With figurative language enriching every sentence, Russell effortlessly transports the reader

This novel [is] beautifully written and very witty, yet often extremely sad too

On one level, this is a sweet, slightly sentimental comin-of-age story; on another, it is a postmodern satire

Russell is really finding her feet with this one, making good on the promise of her eerie debut

A testament to a truly vivid imagination

Russell creats a vivid sense of how reality and fantasy can intertwine in a child's mind and become indistinguishable... What comes through most powerfully in Russell's fertile prose is the humid, mosquito-ridden atmosphere of the Florida swamp and the beguiling strangeness of the creatures - humans included - that make it their home

The novel is an experiment in how children's minds comprehend loss, and Ava is a compelling guide...Russell's strength is her use of language: each sentence is vividly rendered and the pages are as dense with images as the island is with life

The Forgotten Waltz delicately weaves the personal and political into a wry, tender exploration of family, marriage and the price of passion

Brave, beautiful and quite brilliant

A brilliant evocation of an ill-fated extramarital; affair, told with Enright’s customary sharp wit and knack for spotting a love-related cliché

The latest novel from the Booker Prize winning author has an emotional heft that belies the novel’s slender size

a very human tale about passion, secrets and lies.

An achingly brilliant piece of writing on passion and delusion. It's a pleasure to read from start to finish and reignites our love for fiction