Raucous, filthy and funny.

Without question, our most distinguished living exponent of the so- called “excremental vision of life” — a line that goes back (to pick a few names) via James Joyce, Swift, and Ben Jonson, to Chaucer, writers who have explored what meanings of human existence are to be found in the toilet bowl.

Irvine Welsh, I think it’s safe to say, is not a writer who’s mellowing with age... Welsh’s [language is an] astonishingly supple invention: one that can combine scabrousness and lyricism, comedy and ruefulness in the same paragraph... [if] you fancy an authentic and often thrilling blast of full-strength Irvine Welsh, then you’re in for a treat.

It's a stern reader who wouldn't fall for his filthy charm.

Whether your interest is piqued by the ridiculously expensive bottles of whiskey and the extraordinary lengths an American will go to own them or your heart strings are pulled by Wee Jonty’s anguished love story, there’s a multitude of ideas and human emotions that Welsh brings out among the laughter.

When the humour works, we can enjoy the novel for what Welsh clearly intended it to be — a luridly exuberant caper, a series of glossy and gritty snapshots. It won’t make converts out of detractors, but then one senses that a novelist like him wouldn’t want it any other way.

Welsh’s ingenuity, flair, sharp observation, and satirical talent make this not just a decent ride for the reader but an exhilarating one.

It’s filthy and hilarious in equal measure.

An unashamedly indecent read. Welsh fans will love it.

Fantastically funny and well drawn.

Few can match Welsh's verve for spinning a yarn, for putting you inside the minds of characters that are by turn grotesque, joyful, hilarious and – crucially – utterly compelling.

A Decent Ride, while his most comedic novel, is also his darkest.

More furious, filthy brilliance from Welsh.

Packed with filthy charm and characters old and new, it was a comic triumph with plenty of depth through its exploitation of celebrity culture and the treatment of sex workers.

Welsh carries realism to its limits and sometimes beyond… [He] Creates a world more real than a great many worlds we enter in today’s fiction.

Intense . . . As darkly comical as it is terrifying and violent. Stewart shows a dab hand at crafting memorable characters and thoroughly frightening opponents for them to face. A rich debut: Huck Finn meets Moby-Dick

Filled with wild adventure and hilarious dialogue, this vivid, engrossing fantasy will delight readers

Remarkable . . . A rich and vivid fantasy world with a full cast of memorable characters and fantastical beasts

A stunning debut

Exquisite . . . Martin Stewart's descriptions of Wull's world gripped in winter are brutal and beautiful, his monsters are terrifyingly plausible

Absorbing… Serious without being solemn, sweet without being sickly, it’s an elegant tale about the unexpected places where kindness and sympathy can flourish and deepen.

Kennedy’s comedy is ruthlessly observed – an anti-romance that warms into something moving and profound. It’s also a brilliant portrait of city living.

Two lonely people go about their day in London in this typically Kennedian and utterly wonderful novel… but they find their way towards each other in an agonising love story that’s all about morality and decency in a careless world… Kennedy is a stand-up comedian, and observational comedy runs through this novel in interior monologues that are heartbreakingly familiar and laugh-out-loud sad. Her sentences are some of the best in modern fiction (there’s a springer spaniel called Hector with “black, bewildered ears… [that] made him look as if he’d recently heard dreadful news and still hadn’t adjusted.”) and reading her prose is like eating those fizzy sweets that are both sweet and sour make you wince at the back of your mouth – then go back for more… It’s gorgeous.

Consistently raw and powerful… emotionally exhausting… But there’s a lot to be said for a novel which sets so much store by “affection and tenderness”, and in which the emotional peaks and the possibilities of redemption and renewal are marked by the simple holding of hands.

I love, love, love the Rushdie – I think it’s my favourite of his… The fantasy elements are just magical and, of course, it’s gorgeously written.

An apocalyptic battle between reason and unreason, good and evil, light and darkness, with all the bells and whistles of a Hollywood blockbuster.

Not only a beautifully written satire-as-fairytale but the subject matter is bang on trend… That Rushdie should still be writing so potently and still be continuing to push back the frontiers, when he could easily pull up a deck chair and languish on the frontiers he already owns is wonderful, inspirational and profoundly (but only in the best way) terrifying… 10/10, Master.

Ambitious, smart and dark fable that is full of rich and profound notions about human nature.

I like to think how many readers are going to admire the courage of this book, revel in its fierce colours, its boisterousness, humour and tremendous pizzazz, and take delight in its generosity of spirit.