A very accomplished book... A melancholic, but strangely beautiful, read. Shaun Whiteside's translation is exemplary and the acute descriptions of teenage competitiveness, angst and aspiration bring to mind Alan Warner's writing

In clear, heartbreakingly precise prose, the youngest ever winner of the prestigious Premio Strega (the Italian Man Booker) explores how trauma and guilt can capsize emotional stability and leave the vulnerable in a wash of unease and loss...a stunning achievement

Moving... masterful... elegantly discreet

The year's most important début

The story is mesmerising

Genius... everybody can find in Giordano's book a small piece of himself

An elegant fable...its recurring themes of loneliness and longing shimmer through trim and supple prose

Cerebral yet touching debut... The novel's bleak subject matter is rendered almost beautiful by Giordano's spare, intense focus on his two characters

A beautiful and affecting account of the ways in which seemingly inconsequential decisions reverberate so intensely as to change a life forever... This is a book about communication... an intimate psychological portrait of two 'prime numbers' - together alone and alone together. A beautiful and affecting account of the ways in which seemingly inconsequential decisions reverberate so intensely as to change a life forever... This is a book about communication... an intimate psychological portrait of two 'prime numbers' - together alone and alone together

A gently moving and insightful read

This intriguing book, shaped by modern manners and foibles as much as actions and outcomes, takes the reader on a whistle-stop tour of society

The author cleverly brings together the two things that are troubling the nation most - the collapse of the financial system and the threat of terrorism. The book is compelling

Faulks's most vivid character is the odious John Veals, a hedge-fund manager, who relishes all the money that he makes and the power that he quietly exerts... Veals is brilliantly insidious... A thoughtful page-turner... The handsome sunset is heavily, and rightly, weighed down by dark clouds

It would be a hard heart indeed that remained unmoved . . . the tender feelings that Noble engenders in her readers are to be cherished

Tissues are essential. You'll ricochet between delicately watering eyes at the romance of it all and howling sobs at the unbearable tenderness

An ambitious conflation of fact and fiction

Samantha Hunt's fantasy comes closer than any biography to solving the riddle of Tesla's commercial and personal failings ... The Invention of Everything Else is perfect for nights spent in the wrong hotel, once your travel plans have, as usual, gone subtly awry

a fascinating blend of fact, fiction, history and dare I say, science fiction surrounding the weird and wonderful life of Nikola Tesla the acknowledged father of radio and AC electricity.

her portrait of Tesla buzzes with vitality

This unusual novel skilfully interweaves the story of the eccentric inventor of radio and AC electricity with that of Louisa ... a compelling novel.

A sophisticated pastiche of science fiction, fantasy, melodrama, and historical anecdote....It all adds up to a precocious math of human marvel