The beauty of Hrabal's book is how he is able to make this tightly-wound object move...what Hrabal has created is an informal history of the indomitable Czech spirit. And perhaps...the human spirit

First-hand experience informs Hrabal's work with a wonderful detail, irascibility and charm

Hrabal has invented some of the most memorable characters in world literature

Readers won't be able to pull themselves away . . .

Thirteen Reasons Why is a mystery, eulogy, and ceremony. I know, in the years to come, I will often return to this book

Readers won't be able to pull themselves away...

Fonseca's prose is fluent, confident and often funny ... she has a gift for satire that glimmers through this novel. And a near-perfect ear for nuances of speech. Attachment is ferociously well observed. Both physiologically and socially ... as a first novel, the signs of greater things are clearly there

Fonseca's voice - poised, particular, exotic - rises above her plot

Her prose is elegant and wry

Fonseca's talent lies in describing the texture of daily life: the mango with a 'skin like sunset', the pizza boxes that open 'like laptops' ... she is good on the sweep of history and the cultural climate of previous times ... telling details of character - particularly the male characters, are captured well

Isabel Fonseca's slinkily assured debut novel shows a wry appreciation of the complexities of modern love...a novel that presumes to put a woman's mid-life crisis - sexual, spiritual and intellectual - centre stage

Involving novel

this smart, clammy drama, manages to be both unsettling and touching

Fabulous and very clever

A witty exploration of the preoccupations of middle age - sex, serious illness, the death of a parent - its main attraction being the voice, at once tough, funny and lonely, of the inimitable Jean.

Fonesca's debut novel is a funny, heart rendering account of the virtues of love and desire, confounded against the everyday.

Beautifully written

It is expertly written in its way, and oddly compelling - like a slushy movie you can't help but respond to

Moving and thoughtful ... Poignant and compelling, this lyrical novel lifts the veil on an internal world of love, rivalry and misunderstanding; an intricate depiction of sibling relationships

A beautifully evocative and intelligent novel

This impassioned tale is a gripping read

Jones is fabulous...offering titbits of danger and discord, yet keeping a cool matter-of-fact tone for the big horrors

Her second novel is a must-read; a devastating, brilliant account of what happens when everything a man believes in...begins to crumble

Full of danger and discord