Crammed with details of Victorian life, the first book in Bennett's trilogy about a Potteries family examines how one man, Edwin Clayhanger, is shaped by class, geography and ties of blood.

Arnold Bennett writes marvelously on the stuff of life

For Bennett...compassion is not soggy. It involves understanding. The core of his writing is psychological truth, clinically observed, crisply reported

[David Vann] allows Medea to devour him and his readers: to read his book is to be swallowed down into her mad mind … Her wonder at the sea, and the way its water buoys her up, prompts a beautiful passage … Vann is indebted to poets, and he grants himself great poetic licence in his handling of syntax … Vivid, often appalling, sometimes piercingly sad and frequently striking.

A retelling of an ancient tale, a retouched portrait of one of mythology’s most enthralling and notorious women, Medea … (Vann) gives us a ringside seat to a blood-soaked, viscera-dripping gore-fest. Vann gives us a fresh slant on an early myth, an up-close and in-depth character study. From the outset, his drama unfolds in prose that is both atmospheric and electrifying … Vann’s content can be grim but his language has beauty and poise … [A] stunning depiction of one of mythology’s most complex characters … The tale is also one of great power and intensity. Bright Air Black possesses the same potency. Its dark energy shocks us and shakes us, yet it is impossible to pull away.

[A] compelling study of human nature stripped to its most elemental.

Any reimagining of the Greek myth of Medea, she who helped Jason acquire the Golden Fleece from her royal father and killed her children in revenge after Jason betrayed her, will never be a cozy read, yet Vann’s version is darker, edgier, and more discomfiting than most. It’s made up of prose incorporating both mesmerizing sentences and concentrated fragments … The setting has an otherworldly feel at times, which heightens the sense of the tale’s ancientness. Sensual and violent, often simultaneously, Vann’s novel evokes the primal force of women’s power.

A vivid debut novel

Sauma's excellent prose is thoroughly consuming, bouncing between continents and eras to create a complicated tale of class, ancestry, and love in which happy endings are difficult to find but hope remains.

A sensuous, achingly poignant and beautifully observed exploration of both adolescence and a midlife crisis.

[A] quiet, inwardly focused, fast-moving, and well-plotted debut...Brazilian-born Sauma depicts her and her protagonist's vast, beguiling homeland with sweltering realism.

Brazil is marvellously conjured: full of hot, smoky sunrises and manioc pancakes, chilled coconut milk and "the salty violence of Ipanema"