A striking novel that pushes you dizzily into another time and place... Reading it is like being in the middle of a vibrant dream

Phillips points up the hypocrisy and humiliation of a society at breaking point; revealing it with subtlety, humour and humanity

Caryl Phillips has proved himself to be among the best and most productive writers of his generation...with Cambridge he takes a firm step towards joining the company of the literary giants of our time

This powerful, seductively readable book, set in a 19th century slave plantation, finally puts the sickening realities of the slave trade firmly on the map

Phillips is a linguistic and cultural virtuoso

A dazzling act of historical reclamation

Dickens has genius to vivify his observation

He deals truly with human nature, which never can degrade; he takes up everything, good, bad, or indifferent, which he works up into a rich alluvial deposit. He is natural, and that never can be ridiculous

I came to Dickens relatively late in life, but in a way, I think that's the best time. When you're a child, all you see is the plum-pudding characterization and twisting-and-turning storylines, and though that is part of the juicy pleasure of Dickens, you need to be an adult to get the heartbreaking measure of his genius. And nothing shows that more, for me, than David Copperfield. It's the fullest, most breathtakingly truthful story of life - not for nothing was it Freud's favorite novel.

The funniest writer ever to put words to paper

The greatest comic writer ever

P.G. Wodehouse wrote the best English comic novels of the century

Sublime comic genius

You don't analyse such sunlit perfection, you just bask in its warmth and splendour

Wodehouse's idyllic world can never stale. He will continue to release future generations from captivity that may be more irksome than our own. He has made a world for us to live in and delight in

Lovely

Moving and intelligent

Magnetic, unpretentious and bursting with one-liners

Jewell's readability and emotional intelligence make her the cream of pop fiction

Fans of chick-lit will understand when I say that this is a book you simply disappear into