A virtuoso balletic pas de deux of memory and imagination... There is something reminiscent in the fictional young Vila-Matas of Woody Allen... Not only does this novel glitter with sharp ideas and observations, it may just be the best book I've ever read about Paris.

Utterly compelling...breathtakingly accomplished... I was left satisfied, yet somehow wishing this captivating raconteur had continued indefinitely

By the end of it I was fully seduced by its self-portrait of the artist as a young writer... This wonderful book only reconfirms the never-ending-ness of Paris

Vila-Matas's touch is light and whimsical, while his allusions encompass a rogue's gallery of world literature

One of Spain's most inventive and enjoyable novelists

The most important living Spanish author

A strikingly original book

Entrancing

An ironic anti-novel about the novel: it poses serious questions about the form’s limitations in being able to capture the protean reality of memory and identity but also argues for its continuing relevance (taking its cue from writers like Barthes, Perec and Queneau who appear in its pages) as a post-modernist game of ideas, a thought-provoking jeu d’esprit.

Everyone knows someone with an encyclopaedic knowledge of pop or Radio One’s back catalogue. So if you’re fed up of second-guessing which albums are missing from their collection, but want a more personal gift than just another iTunes voucher, try John Niven’s satirical look at the music industry. Recently adapted for film, this is a hard and fast story based within the cutthroat music industry. Give this book as a gift and you’re sure to have any muso singing your praises.

The novel is rich in sentiment and episodes conveying sentiment.

Smart, sly, raucous, outrageous and tender The Guts will have you cheering for Jimmy and his family and if you’re not already a fan of Doyle’s writing will surely make you one.

The biggest joy is Doyle's deftness with dialogue.

In The Guts, Doyle returns once more to those themes he has always written about so singularly: love and family. Doyle has never written anything that is not about love and its transformational power.

A big-hearted novel of family life in which bad things ultimately happen to other people.

As ever with Doyle, there’s wit, warmth and exuberant swearing found in even the toughest of situations.

Jimmy Rabbitte is 47 and potentially facing death, but ready to have a good time before doing it.

What it has…is a melancholy wisdom, and some moments of heartbreaking poignancy.

Doyle conjures up a genuine tenderness, empathy and humanity when he writes about family life.

A warm, rude and occasionally tender novel about friendship, family and facing death.

This is a bitter-sweet novel: a state-of-the-nation, state-of-the-age recession appraisal, and a loving portrayal of an imperfect, foul-mouthed, unstoppable, loving and lovable old bastard… [Doyle] packs more emotion into a simple ‘yeah’, or an ‘I know’ than many writers do into entire poetic speeches.

Think it's clear from The Guts that Roddy Doyle has written this one from the guts: it's frank and funny, it's about things that matter (love and family and friendship), and it crackles with feisty Dublin dialect and richly comic exchanges.

Warm, funny novel.

Lachyrymachismo. The art of being weepy and tough at the same time. This book has it in spades. Or rather buckets.

The great thing about Roddy Doyle is his ear for the demotic… The Guts is a good read.

Doyle explores post-boom Ireland with gusto.

Unsurprisingly, every bit as good as the original [The Commitments], Doyle is one of those rare writers who never disappoints

Wise, wistful and poignant.

Bittersweet.

Long-awaited sequel.

Doyle’s ear for dialogue is as acute as ever and there’s a lot of amusing asides about contemporary life in this revisiting of much-loved characters.

A book full of Doyle's dark humour mixed with melancholy and wonderful moments of sheer madness.

The feat of The Guts is Doyle’s ability to create in Jimmy a character who hangs together even while so many of his certainties have collapsed. And to get a few good jokes in as well.