First Person is both comic and frightening. At times I caught a glimpse of Money-era Martin Amis in Flanagan’s satirical asides on the Australian publishing industry… And there’s a hint, too, of an epochal gloom that is redolent of the The Great Gatsby. Yet there are also passages touched with the virtuosity that shone so brightly in The Narrow Road that are pure Flanagan… Studded with sharp, breath-catching observations about the finite nature of life

The novel, with its switch backing recollections and cyclical dialogue, its penetrating scenes of birth and, eventually, death, is enigmatic and mesmerizing

Perhaps the most prodigal account of writer’s block ever written… Despite some sprightly satirical sallies, mostly about publishing, First Person is a serious treatment of important modern issues (corporate corruption, exploitation of trust, the impudent dismissal of truth)

A black comedy about the unreliability of memory and the warped values of modern publishing... the beauty of First Person is the way it blossoms into a much richer novel than that outline scenario suggests.... readable and thought-provoking

A dark, occasionally demented book, that is as unsettling as it is inspired

Electric tension... a smart, slippery novel pitched between book-world satire, psychological thriller and state-of-Australia analysis

There’s some wonderful writing about Tasmania and the wild kayaking exploits which the narrator and Ray enjoyed, at the risk of their lives, in their youth. There is some very fine descriptive writing and narrative passages that go with a swing. There’s the sadness of lives gone wrong or torn apart, the desolation that is the consequence of family break-up. Yet the strength of the novel rests in its mordant intelligence, in its recognition that the world today is essentially Ziggy’s, one of make-believe and denial… Absorbing

Richard Flanagan is an ardent voice

The real joy of [First Person] is the intensity of its honesty and its writing. This is a book of demonic possession, of obsession, and there’s a zinger of thought, of expression, in every paragraph.

Flanagan is scathingly funny about the world of publishing as seen from the point of view of an unpublished writer, but this is also a profound and thought-provoking novel that explores the nature of truth, lies and fiction

First Person is a work that crawls under the reader’s skin for its duration. Harrowing in how it lampoons the publishing industry, Flanagan unflinchingly reflects on how social predators within such circles prey on those with a shred of hope or joy until nothing is left of their original identity

The writing and structure are exceptionally good. Richard has fantastic finesse with the use of language and the enviable ability of describing a lot in concentrated amounts… It has a reflective after burn, which I always rate as a skill in its own right, and so it is definitely one, if tempted to, you ought to give it a go. The writing is impressive and most definitely unique

The book is convincing as an exploration of ourselves and the meaning of identity and truth in a "fake news" world.

There, There is an urgent, invigorating, absolutely vital book by a novelist with more raw virtuosic talent than any young writer I've come across in a long, long time. Maybe ever. Tommy Orange is a stylist with substance, a showboater with a deeply moral compass. I want to call him heir to Gertrude Stein by way of George Saunders, but he is even more original than that. This book will make your heart swell.

It’s practically Shakespearean. But there’s sharp humour and spiky energy too in this bold, distinctive debut

These are stories that need to be heard. Tommy Orange is a writer who needs to be read

There There feels like a bold opening statement of intent… Orange has a way with words and a convincing eye for character. His debut has both the arresting page-turning charm of a good thriller but also the recumbent beauty of a well written literary novel

Orange’s fiery debut… There There is at once a poetic and suspenseful page-turner and a subtle condemnation of a shameful history

Exhilarating and polyphonic, with a Tarantino-esque climax, it is also a powerful meditation on history, culture and identity

There There…[is] hugely impressive, a brilliantly conceived and written first novel

[There There] tackles poverty, sexuality, identity and the decline and desire for community. It's Orange's ability to carve out such small and quiet moments in the stifled domestic strands of his complicated story and then such magnitude in the breadth of the overarching topic…which makes this novel so frightening, so hopeful and so powerful

Orange is an extremely skilful writer; each narrative voice he creates is completely distinctive and it is a wonder that this novel was written by a single writer

Her stirring story celebrates the joys of self-discovery and the essential truth that family is ours to define

Tyler's bedazzling yet fathoms-deep feel-good novel is wrought with nimble humour, intricate understanding of emotions and family, place and community – and bounteous pleasure in quirkiness, discovery, and renewal

I never look at a family, or a couple in a car, or a funeral cortege without thinking: "I wonder what's going on there." That's what Anne Tyler teaches you: never judge a cover until you've read its book

Tyler captures the quiet turmoil of family life with the utmost discretion, knowing that to understand it is not the same as being able to subordinate it

Rigorously intelligent, quietly funny and very precise about words

A beautifully observed portrait of one woman’s quiet quest for identity and purpose

Clock Dance is moving, funny acute… This is a beautifully structured work of fiction, full of narrative tension, which moves towards a fine diminuendo, followed by a crisis of possibility

A lovely novel following the author’s usual theme of hope and regret, renewal and contentment

Tyler has the ability to bring character to life in just a few sentences

Anne Tyler’s astute new novel Clock Dance is fuelled by kindness, kindness that begins tentatively with false starts and blind spots and grows into the extravagant all-encompassing sort

I loved Clock Dance

Warmly appealing and sharply observant...combines comic relish with psychological and social shrewdness. Characters pulse with lifelikeness. Dialogue crackles with authenticity. Changes brought about by time are fascinatedly and fascinatingly observed

A moving, often spiky study of relationships and the far-reaching effects of trauma

A thought-provoking story that resonates with emotional depth

Moshfegh’s characters are often so funny in and about their unhappiness that we don’t want them to escape it, or not yet… My Year of Rest and Relaxation is written in multiple modes at once: comedy and tragedy and farce, blurring into one another, climbing on top of one another.

A shocking, hilarious and strangely tender novel.

I love this book. It's funny, I find it intriguing and Moshfegh has a dark voice. I started reading her and thought, 'This sounds like a female Bret Easton Ellis'.

Enthralling. The voice is compelling and witty, drawing one into the experience.

The black comedy draws you in and the mysteries, twists and turns keep you there.

Whip-smart and bleakly funny.

The most inspiring novel of recent years.

Depressing, dystopian, dry and dark, but also strangely comforting and full of the joy of innocent fantasy of withdrawing from a hostile world.

Moshfegh's stunning 2018 novel has a haunting ending... [and] relentlessly vicious humour.

This razor sharp satirical novel has achieved near mythical status... [a] compelling and clever take on a female character that isn't afraid to speak her mind

Ottessa is one of our newest, most dazzling, daring and outrageous voices in literature

A very compelling read… hilarious and depressing and rage-inducing in equal measures.

Absorbing.

Lyrical, bleakly comic and, ultimately, intensely affecting

It is a necessary and compelling book, and this year’s must read

Rachel Kushner’s exhaustive research into what goes on within these walls

Kushner’s high-definition, high-impact prose is as electrifying as it is daring

The momentum of the novel resides in its prose, the spring and sass of a voice so vivid it can largely dispense with the mechanics of plot

A salty and hilarious novel from one of America's best living novelists.

Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room should be a favourite [to win the Man Booker Prize]. If you like your escapism as gritty as it gets, prepare to be hooked by this unflinching account of a female prisoner serving a double life sentence... The Mars Room is rarely easy reading, but the furore of voices and violence and injustice throws you right into the story and keeps you immersed there.

Kushner’s novel is a timely reminder that a country’s authoritarian tendencies can be most easily measured by the number of people it deems unworthy of freedom

Rachel Kushner knows how to sniff out a good character.

Rachel Kushner’s The Mars Room immerses you in the life of a high-security women’s prison in California, its central character Romy – accused of killing her stalker – both gritty and fragile. This was not a subject I thought would grip me, but in Kushner’s firm hands I was entranced. Much of the book is autobiographical – while never in prison herself, Kushner was the daughter of Beatniks and allowed to roam the dodgier areas of San Francisco as a teenager. The characters range from bullet-headed killers to a well-meaning male teacher whose ambiguities are brilliantly done. Romy’s trans friend Conan, “shoulders as broad as the aisle, and a jawline beard”, is delightfully free of the politically correct, while the style veers excitingly from straight narrative to scribbled lists like whimpers of despair.

Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room was a hot favourite on this year's Booker shortlist, and it's easy to see why… Kushner's atmospheric writing is compelling to the last.

Kushner’s writing is the most marvellous I read this year… time and again I found myself rereading paragraphs of The Mars Room for her perfectly turned sentences, the music of her prose

[A] brilliantly compelling read