The Watchers and now Angel City … read like Paradise Lost redrafted by Raymond Chandler in a fevered dream, in which the demonic hordes are desperate to secure nuclear weaponry and the angels have the kind of firepower that Milton couldn’t have conjured up in his worst nightmares. It’s the old tale of good versus evil rewritten as a compelling modern fable.

It's brilliantly written, the most tremendous story, a fantastic adventure, and it's also got this wonderful love story

I devoured it

[Ivanhoe] entranced people all over Europe, with Goethe declaring that Scott had invented 'a wholly new art'

The central place of Sir Walter Scott and all his works is so deeply ingrained in the Scottish consciousness that there is scarcely an article written about Scotland or Scottishness that does not mention his name

The Guts has life, and heart, and jokes.

The novel is probably the most contemplative that Doyle has written — as a meditation on the importance of family, it is at times almost unbearably moving.

Bright, jokey, wry and robust.

Unchanged is Doyle’s miraculous ability to serve up dialogue that fizzes with great, often quite rude jokes – but never at the expense of the emotions lying behind them.

As one does with old friends, you leap right back into the conversation as if you’ve never been apart... It’s got a bittersweet humour all its own.

The novel is rich in sentiment and episodes conveying sentiment.

Smart, sly, raucous, outrageous and tender The Guts will have you cheering for Jimmy and his family and if you’re not already a fan of Doyle’s writing will surely make you one.

The biggest joy is Doyle's deftness with dialogue.

In The Guts, Doyle returns once more to those themes he has always written about so singularly: love and family. Doyle has never written anything that is not about love and its transformational power.

A big-hearted novel of family life in which bad things ultimately happen to other people.

As ever with Doyle, there’s wit, warmth and exuberant swearing found in even the toughest of situations.

Jimmy Rabbitte is 47 and potentially facing death, but ready to have a good time before doing it.

What it has…is a melancholy wisdom, and some moments of heartbreaking poignancy.

Doyle conjures up a genuine tenderness, empathy and humanity when he writes about family life.

A warm, rude and occasionally tender novel about friendship, family and facing death.

This is a bitter-sweet novel: a state-of-the-nation, state-of-the-age recession appraisal, and a loving portrayal of an imperfect, foul-mouthed, unstoppable, loving and lovable old bastard… [Doyle] packs more emotion into a simple ‘yeah’, or an ‘I know’ than many writers do into entire poetic speeches.

Think it's clear from The Guts that Roddy Doyle has written this one from the guts: it's frank and funny, it's about things that matter (love and family and friendship), and it crackles with feisty Dublin dialect and richly comic exchanges.

Warm, funny novel.

Lachyrymachismo. The art of being weepy and tough at the same time. This book has it in spades. Or rather buckets.

The great thing about Roddy Doyle is his ear for the demotic… The Guts is a good read.

Doyle explores post-boom Ireland with gusto.

Unsurprisingly, every bit as good as the original [The Commitments], Doyle is one of those rare writers who never disappoints

Wise, wistful and poignant.

Bittersweet.

Long-awaited sequel.

Doyle’s ear for dialogue is as acute as ever and there’s a lot of amusing asides about contemporary life in this revisiting of much-loved characters.

A book full of Doyle's dark humour mixed with melancholy and wonderful moments of sheer madness.

The feat of The Guts is Doyle’s ability to create in Jimmy a character who hangs together even while so many of his certainties have collapsed. And to get a few good jokes in as well.