All the ingredients of a fictional espionage novel are here - sharply drawn characters, a fast-paced plot, violence, terror, intrigue and even the obligatory sex...A highly readable portrait of a committed revolutionary and compulsive bully

What matters in this immensely informative book is what it tells us about how terrorists operate rather than why

The tentacles of terror, spreading out from the KGB via the military headquarters of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine... is painstakingly and vividly portrayed by Colin Smith

A good solid, and very readable account of the way an overweight Venezuelan rich boy, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, was transformed by degrees into the lean, commanding figure in a white raincoat who had... the OPEC oil moguls literally prostrate on the carpet

For years Ilich Sanchez played cat and mouse with the governments of the world... Now he's locked up in a French jail, from which he should never be released. In a classic piece of reportage, Colin Smith reconstructs Carlos's filthy career

This is what Tyler does better than almost any contemporary writer. She peers at the forgotten areas of the everyday, the bits that are hard to pinpoint, yet make up the bulk of our relationships. And this, ultimately, is why she is such a satisfying writer: she looks at people - at life - from the inside out

A simple, subtle and really honest account of how one man, Aaron, deals with the darkly comic death of his dumpy, clever and brilliant wife Dorothy... I finished it in one sitting

A perfectly judged and brilliantly executed novel of loss and recovery

A near flawless novel of love and loss...this exquisitely poignant but unsentimental portrait of a loving but tragic mismatch

Yet again she has articulated the supreme difficulties of human communication in a calmly insightful exploration of love and truth, grief and reality

Her stories are quite unlike anyone else's

Tyler writes with a generosity of spirit and an emotional truthfulness that makes you forget the bare mechanics of plot

Tyler uses simple, elegant prose to manifest her particular brands of realism and humour

Tyler distilled

Her novels assert, with acuity, compassion and inventive humour, the uniqueness and value of each human life... a carefully observed study of grief and its trajectory

Deeply rewarding novel about grief and hope, infused with gentle humour

Acutely, tenderly observed. Tyler is excellent on the ways we endlessly misread even those closest to us

Richer and more alive than the best work almost any other writer is producing

Deeply rewarding

All Hail Anne Tyler

She's a master storyteller and inventor of character

A funny, gently moving and insightful book

What could be mawkish and cloying is gentle and touching, not least because she is a very funny writer

In Tyler’s small slices of life there is poetry and wisdom

The ending teeters on the brink of sentimentality but such is her psychological insight, the truth of her writing, that if she says unlikely happy endings are possible, I believe her

This meticulous, gently humorous novel is concerned with the effects of grief, the stop-start nature of moving on and the role of friendships, however imperfect, in facing catastrophe. [Tyler] remains as gimlet-eyed as ever in portraying ordinary lives that have become unmoored

This novel's great achievement is to capture the tensions and subtleties of a married life cut short… I read [it] virtually in one sitting, but that's a fairly common experience with Anne Tyler books… I didn't want it to end. Which is also a fairly common Tyler thing

The Beginner’s Goodbye is a very funny book…every incident is at once recognizably true to life and yet somehow utterly off-kilter

Engaging, heartfelt and brutal.

Quite simply a masterpiece…at least as assured and vibrant in its characterization as Trainspotting, Skagboys is even more on the money politically… this novel more than any other , (including its brilliant predecessor) stands as our spiritual and moral history.

There is enough of what Welsh does well — needle-sharp dialogue, vivid characters and a certainty of place — to make Skagboys his best work in many years…an essential read.

Welsh always spins his yarns with grisly élan.

I ended up charmed beyond measure, if that is the right word for a novel whose odd moments of poignance are regularly booted into touch by death, disillusionment and dereliction.

Every bit as impressive as Trainspotting

Visceral, tragic and comic, with Welsh’s schlock-shock appeal

If you enjoyed Trainspotting, you will adore this prequel... I think that Welsh has achieved the impossible and produced a prequel that betters the main text

Filthy, furious and very funny, this is Welsh back on blistering top form

The strength of Cline's first novel, other than its geeky referencing of 1980s pop culture, is the characterisation of the Candide-like Wade and his redemptive quest in both VR and the real world.

If you grew up with an Atari or maybe had a Commodore 64 back in the day, you are going to really enjoy this one. Cline really captures the feeling of those good old days in Ready Player One.

Cline [crafts] a fresh and imaginative world from our old toy box ... Cline strikes the nerves of nerd culture as expertly as Andy played that skeleton organ in The Goonies.