The plot is a marvel of ingenuity and makes most detective stories look primitive by comparison

A fine satire, filled with humorous incidents and much subtle philosophy. It is for intelligent, open-minded people with a sense of humour

The author has a wonderful eye for village types, and the village of Clochemerle is built up for us as a shining and integrated whole - he has chosen to employ his great talents in describing a series of people, episoded and conversations that are ribald, exaggerated and bizarre. I must confess that its rollicking grossness pleased me

A full-blooded uproarious farce in the Rabelaisian tradition

From prehistoric caves to Axl Rose's oxygen chamber, Sullivan's generous, witty voice lights up every page

The most involving collection of essays to appear in many a year

I was totally blown away by this collection of the new new new journalism, or however many "news" we’re up to these days. I think I like it as much – at times, even more – than Foster Wallace’s A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never do Again. And that, for me, is saying a lot

The best non-fiction... whether he’s writing about the southern literary tradition or smoking pot in Disneyland, the man is astute, funny and wonderful company

The essay collection continues to thrive; of the many I came across this year, the best ... [included] Pulphead

Magnificent ... elegant, engaged and full of feeling... I’ve lost count of the number of people I’ve pressed it on

Proof of the power of non-fiction to defamiliarise the ordinary and familiarise the strange... a Cadillac-on-the-freeway tour of Americana

Pulls off quite a trick ... he mines the residual weirdness and oddities of the “other side of America” without ever condescending to his subjects

Slangy, reported, in the moment... a collection of smart and fizzy magazine pieces

Of these essays I really, really liked the one on Michael Jackson... Sullivan tells us more interesting stuff in this one essay than everything else I’ve read put together... Sullivan tries to understand the way Jackson thought

Simultaneously folksy, modern, curious, confiding and rigorously intellectual

The Southern editor of the Paris Review can write as scintillatingly about the tea party, Michael Jackson or Hurricane Katrina as he can about rare Southern folk blues or American reality television

Of these essays, I really, really liked the one on Michael Jackson. Sullivan tells us more interesting stuff in this one essay than everything else I’ve read put together - the ancestors who were slaves, the scandals, the voice, the way he composed music; Sullivan tries to understand the way Jackson thought

Jim is such a likeable character, unflinchingly recounting in all his worst failures and humiliations

A funny, wryly observed coming-of-age novel, it will strike a chord with anyone who grew up during the Noughties. It’s full of quirky period details and Jim is an engaging narrator