The wittiest man since Groucho Marx and the wisest since Karl Marx

For the last years of his life, Vonnegut was our sage and chain-smoking truth teller... Why these stories went unpublished is hard to answer. They're polished, they're relentlessly fun to read, and every last one of them comes to a neat and satisfying end

These [stories] date from early in his literary career in the early to mid-Fifties, but already they show the hallmarks of Vonnegut's distinctive voice and style - that unique mixture of knowingness and wide-eyed innocence, warmth and cynicism, guile and simplicity.... Not too difficult to see why he didn't manage to place these stories at the time - the early Fifties wasn't ready for such darkness and lightly-worn subversion. Terrific

What is surprising about these 14 short stories written by the master satirist during the 1950s, is that not one has been published before. it is not for want of quality: they are rather wonderful... They are uncharacterisable, but so was Vonnegut (The New York Times said it best in calling him the laughing proophet of doom). The opening tale, Confido, starts the collection as it means to go on: it is mischievious, nutty and astute

The fourteen unpublished stories in Look at the Birdie are as outlandish and well turned as anything he wrote, displaying his impish playfulness. Most authors spend a lifetime finding their voice. Here we see that Vonnegut's was well-established at the start of his career: tightly plotted yet loose in style; spry; sporadic if not downright acerbic, yet with plenty of laughter in the dark. [...] warm, generous and uncompromising spirit behind this collection.

...they show the hallmarks of Vonnegut's distinctive voice and style - that unique mixture of knowingness and wide-eyed innocence, warmth and cynicism, guile and simplicity...Not too difficult to see why he didn't manage to place these stories at the time - the early Fifties wasn't ready for such darkness and lightly-worn subversion. Terrific.

rather wonderful...still knocks most purveyors of the short story form into a cocked hat

Look at the Birdie is a valuable time capsule, providing insight into the early developments of Vonnegut's style. Wry and ironic commentary connect each story making this collection an enjoyable read

All the stories are clever, witty and written with Vonnegut's trademark invention

Look at the Birdie is a valuable time capsule, providing insight into the early developments of Vonnegut's style. Wry and ironic commentary connect each story making this collection an enjoyable read

MacLaverty's stories don't lack drama, but their effect is subtle and stealthy: they creep up on you

A master at work...richly textured, filled with vividly humorous detail

Confirms MacLaverty's status as an impressive heir of Chekhov and James Joyce

Reading Lasdun is like reading a sly collaboration between Kafka and Updike: elegant, acutely observed and utterly unflinching.

A sobering study of how humans cope when under pressure. Lasdun's prose is undeniably sound. Ingenious sentences are strung together with ease

Short stories from a master prose miniaturist

A marvellous, masterful collection

Lasdun specialises in capturing, with unnerving insight, the split seconds in which moods and emotions turn on triggers so fine and subtle that they're barely perceptible. He nails these moments perfectly, spiking the core of the microgram of fly in the ointment and thus catching the infinitesimal moment with startling perception

James Lasdun is one of those gifted writers who seems to have avoided the attention he deserves....It's Beginning to Hurt is, in places, the best story collection I have read since Tobias Wolff's Our Story Begins.

Lasdun's third collection of short stories is nothing short of a revelation... each story is raised to amazing heights by the author's incredibly incisive prose

James Lasdun, poet, novelist, short story writer and Englishman turned American émigré, offers up permutations of suppressed inner turmoil

There is something so rich and gripping in his prose that it simply elicits your attention... It's Beginning to Hurt is a collection to jump-start your imagination

A master of the form with the enthralling psychological subtleties

Precisely observed and chilling

Lasdun is a smart writer with an excellent sense of pace

Lasdun's prose is marked by a fine, thoughtful, humane exactness

Lasdun bravely identifies a profoundly anti-human aspect to environmental moralising to provide a study in embarrassment that made this reader wince

Superb... punchy, exhilarating collection

Deft precise language, strong narratives and great emotional insight

Lasdun's characters from New York and the Sussex countryside create a world of objects and feelings that are rich, recognisable and yet elusive, marked by the thoughtful, and humane exactness of his prose