Ocean Vuong, one of my favourite contemporary poets, expanded his body of work beautifully in Time Is a Mother

A remarkable return: Vuong's unparalleled luminosity of phrase, his perfected pinpoint accuracy of image is here placed alongside a thrilling expansion of voice and gaze which further confirms Vuong as one of the most important poets of his generation

Haunting, inconsolable, and at the same time a playful, generous in spirit, tender, inimitable book. The poet’s late mother is these pages’ muse and guardian spirit, as poem after poem Vuong redefines our idea of what an elegy can do it, what it is for. But from all of this intersection of tragedy and tenderness, true wisdom comes: Vuong teaches us not just how to grieve, but how to live

This summer, I'll be packing his poetry collection... I'm looking forward to being still and having the space to read and reread his powerful words

These 28 accomplished poems explore grief, trauma, family... Language itself, in all its power and violence, falls under Vuong's incomparable scrutiny

Tender and heartbreaking... Delving back into the visceral themes that made his 2019 novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous a revelation, Vuong traverses the intensely personal and the broadly political with grace and courage

Vuong's poems passionately and inventively articulate the difficulties of understanding and accepting selfhood alongside the varieties of life beyond it

There's something about Vuong's writing that demands all of your lungs. The succinct line arrangement and absence of full stops in poems... force you to breathe heavy

Not since Emily Dickinson has poetry found such an oceanic openness of the self's quiet laceration and cautious resilience. In Time Is A Mother Ocean Vuong's words are bullets travelling through the page and hitting us with debris resembling our memory of art, love, grief and acts of survival... We find ourselves being salvaged and released into a world where a word, a turn of phrase, or a line makes a difficult moment bearable. There is a violent process of fermentation in Vuong's poems that keeps poetry pungent, truth-seeking and unerasable

Vuong writes with such a sensitive scrutiny, breathtaking in its expression

A stirring collection of poetry. Vuong experiments with language and form while probing the aftermath of his mother's death and his determination to survive it. Take your time with these poems, and return to them often

Through these poems, Vuong sings loud and clear of everything worth living for and discovering - just as vividly as he did in his critically acclaimed titles On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous and Night Sky With Exit Wounds

An incredibly impactful collection, there's no doubt Time Is A Mother will strike a chord with most

A profound and accomplished collection

Heartbreaking and perfect

A gorgeous, moving and awe-inspiring gathering of poems that feel like award-winning short films. These vignettes of loss, grief and love will take your breath away

An indispensable collection

I've been Anne Tyler-ed. After finishing French Braid, the 24th novel from the formidable American novelist, I was going about my life thinking nothing particularly radical had happened to me. And then I thought about it, and I thought about it some more, and I realised - boom - she really is a master

Anne Tyler's genius lies in her ability to make the lives of this unremarkable family as enthralling as those of the most heroic soldiers or diabolical serial killers... This is a novel to add to the list of her greatest triumphs

Anne Tyler is the world's best living novelist... in French Braid Tyler demonstrates once again why she is so beloved... What she offers is...a glimpse into the very workings of the human heart

[A] wonderful novel

Tyler's books are full of subtleties, tender compassion and humanity, and French Braid is no exception

[Tyler's] style is striking... few are better at covering the passage of time, and hinting at the shifting cultural climate in a single sentence

Deft and graceful, French Braid is utterly convincing. Fifty-eight years since she published her first novel, Tyler continues to capture life's joys, contradictions and ordinary heartbreaks with humour and precision

Tyler pulls off the rare feat of presenting her characters both as they see themselves and as others see them

A warm-hearted exploration of the foibles and dynamics of family life

read her for the eccentric characters, the pitch-perfect dialogue, the humour and the tiny ordinary moments so exquisitely described they bring tears to your eyes

A warm-hearted exploration of the foibles and dynamics of family life

Tyler is a superb observer of family life... Heartbreak is deftly layered over a vibrant portrayal of the city, its codes and nuances

Anne Tyler is a wonderful storyteller and French Braid is another classic... Funny but hearthbreaking, too. I loved every single page

Anne Tyler's genius lies in her ability to make this unremarkable family so enthralling

Tyler is a genius at telling big stories with small details and this is an engrossing, fascinating family portrait

Gentle and comforting, but with a hidden core of desperate, cloying sadness, and is vintage Tyler

An astute, well-observed and compulsively readable saga

I adore her [Tyler] books. She’s written 24 novels and I’ve read every single one. She’s 81 and yet French Braid, her latest, is one of her very best

Kimberly Farr reads with a gentle-paced wryness, thoughtful and exact