Wood can produce sentences as fine as bone china.

Those who know Wood as the New Yorker's literary critic would do well to pick up his novels, too. Upstate is a funny, moving family drama.

Captures the anxious plight of a loving father with exquisite delicacy … Its affections are large and its wisdom deep … One can’t help but feel enriched by the treasure of Wood’s sweet-tempered wit.

Its energy derives from feted critic James Wood's observational chops, and you can expect muscular descriptions ... and modest, deeply humane revelations ... Polished, poignant and often very funny.

Uncharted physical and emotional terrain collide in James Wood’s thoughtful and thought-provoking second novel Upstate, a deceptively gentle exploration of the wounds of the past, the complex mesh of family relationships and the ways in which they aid or obstruct our strategies for healing … stubbornly true to life.

Wood's insightful novel is short but deep, possessing the openness of a short story … The writing is beautiful, the location snow-crunchingly real … A quietly engrossing read.

Moving... Perfectly pitched by Wood.

[James Wood] has a canny eye for detail, writes a good metaphor ... and sets his scenes meticulously.

There is much to admire [in Upstate]... flashes of brilliance at sentence level... This is how fiction works.

Upstate, a new novel by the literary critic James Wood, asks readers to consider a fundamental question: can one think one’s way into happiness? ... Everything [Wood] does is underscored by humour. A great strength of Upstate is its general snap and vigour, and one sees this across Wood's criticism, too.

With Upstate, Wood turns the tables … Upstate is a book about being broken, people and nations both … A rich and slowburn tale.

With a lovely warmth … Coupled with a fine, light touch … Upstate has a confident quietness which also suits the region of England from where its characters hail.

Big philosophical questions are pursued in a tale of love and mental breakdown from a leading literary critic.

Short but deep and quietly engrossing.

If you miss the charmingly eccentric and completely relatable characters from Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout's best-selling My Name is Lucy Barton, you'll be happily reunited with them in Strout's smart and soulful Anything is Possible

Strout once again shows her talent for adroitly uncovering what makes ordinary people tick

Strout pierces the inner worlds of these characters' most private behaviors, illuminating the emotional conflicts and pure joy of being human, of finding oneself in the search for the American dream

Amgash, Illinois, will be familiar to Elizabeth Strout fans as the hometown of the protagonist of her 2016 novel, My Name is Lucy Barton. In Anything is Possible... Lucy's legend looms large... but no prior reading is required to enjoy Strout's powerful writing and empathy

We devoured Strout's last novel, My Name Is Lucy Barton, and her latest-which is loosely linked to Lucy Barton-is no different. Told from multiple points of view, it's about residents of a small town in Illinois struggling with the most relatable and quotidian problems... you'll swear you know these characters. (In fact, it reminds us a bit of another of Strout's masterpieces, the excellent Olive Kitteridge.)

Elizabeth Strout's prose is like words doing jazz

I am deeply impressed. Writing of this quality comes from a commitment to listening, from a perfect attunement to the human condition, from an attention to reality so exact that it goes beyond a skill and becomes a virtue.

A powerful storyteller immersed in the nuances of human relationships

Tender, elegiac, this is the story of a single life that also manages to tell the story of many

The writing is wrenchingly lovely. It almost always is with Strout, whether she's knitting metaphors or summarizing, with agonizing economy, whole episodes.

There are not many novelists out there producing writing as good as this

Down to every sentence, it's wise, touching and quietly powerful

As always, Strout treats even the most difficult characters with rare understanding. "It made me feel much less alone," says on reader of Lucy's memoir. The same will surely be said of Anything Is Possible

Gorgeous... Strout is in that special company of writers like Richard Ford, Stewart O'Nan and Richard Russo, who write simply about ordinary lives and, in so doing, make us readers see the beauty of both their worn and rough surfaces and what lies beneath

Highly enjoyable

A subtle, disturbing and touching book that is a miracle of wisdom and perception

A beautifully told story of small-town Americans dealing with big life issues

Utterly beautiful in the way that these characters were flawed to their core yet brimful of keeping it together no matter what...I loved it, there wasn't a moment when I didn't believe it.

In all her novels, including this one, "the kindness of strangers is a fierce sun than can pierce the cloud"

Every chapter has depth, nuances, restrained descriptions and luminous characterisation. A wonder of a book

Elizabeth Strout is a novelist in whose hands anything really is possible, and if you've yet to discover her, make this holiday the one you do

This glimmering, profound, beautiful novel is modern American writing at its best'

Just as understated and as full of horrifyingly elisions and surprising epiphanies as its predecessor

This audacious novel is about small-town characters struggling to make sense of past family traumas

Strout turns her clear, incisive gaze on the intricacies and betrayals of small town life

Anything is Possible is predictably great because it's written by Elizabeth Strout, and brilliantly unpredictable - because it is written by Elizabeth Strout