Manipulating masterfully, Miss Murdoch turns out a deft three-in-one book: a sort of combined superior soap opera… a British novel of sensibility, and philosophical inquiry into reality

I suspect that when the intellectual map of our own times comes to be sketched out, Iris Murdoch will occupy a position analogous to Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky... Murdoch writes better than anyone about the condition of being love: both the ecstatic joys of it and its capacity to turn otherwise decent individuals into monsters of selfishness and cruelty... Her vision of the world is heart-rending, but ultimately celebratory

[A] philosophical football match that encompasses myth, literature and history... Discursive, grandiose, witty stuff from the quintessential savvy professor

Eco's greatest virtue might be said to lie in his ability to clarify the exact nature of our present perplexities...lucid, logical and always firmly on the side of civilisation

Eco's writing has a unique ability to dance on the page and to resonate in the mind

Thought provoking… nuanced, accessible prose… the collection amply shows off Eco’s sophisticated, agile mind and will undoubtedly bring pleasure to readers familiar with his worlds while enriching those willing to learn about them

There is plenty here for everyone, and some of it is up-to-the-minute. The subtitle may be a semi-provocative exaggeration, but this collection of occasional pieces does cover a lot of ground

All of [Eco’s essays] pay tribute to history, giving his work their characteristically accessible weight and depth, often conveying some new nugget of information

[Eco’s] mind is still as fecund as ever, as demonstrated by this collection of essays… Eco may be an intellectual of the highest order, but there’s nothing forbidding about this collection of essays which are readable and thought-provoking

Utterly compelling; at the risk of trotting out a cliché, I couldn't put the book down

A brilliantly observed tale of class and hedonism

Meg Wolitzer’s latest offering promises to be the epic novel of the summer

A wonderful novel, written with warmth and depth of emotion

This is an exhilarating, aerobatic, addictive novel

Meg Wolitzer’s best novel yet

The dreamy, criss-crossing narrative proves Wolitzer one of America’s most ingenious and important writers

An engrossing look at life’s twists and turns

The wit, intelligence and deep feeling of Wolitzer’s writing are extraordinary and The Interestings brings her achievement, already so steadfast and remarkable, to an even higher level.

This is a wonderful book. Intelligent and subtle, it is exquisitely written with enormous warmth and depth of emotion… Wolitzer is an affectionate and clear-sighted observer of human nature

Meg Wolitzer proves brilliant at writing normal, unremarkable lives, investing them with just as much detailed attention and humane humour as the lives of the beautiful, the rich and the famous… [She] also pulls off an impressive balancing act, sometimes inhabiting the moment-to-moment present of her characters, and at others times writing with a droll hindsight

There are certain authors whose new book you look forward to as though you were about to catch up on news from an old friend. And there are authors whose new book you fall on greedily because you know it will be tartly delicious and satisfy a hunger you didn’t know you had till you read them for the first time. For me, Meg Wolitzer has long been in both of those categories… The Interestings is full of Wolitzer’s trademark pleasures. I love her fearlessness in tackling everything … She has a sly wit and verbal brio which can even make clinical depression entertaining