'A proper Pern novel...bodes well for future volumes'

Dragonsblood is a good yarn, fitting perfectly into the Pern series, yet something I don't think I would have thought up myself. Enjoy, as I did, another point of view about Pern

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett is a wonderful story that I could think myself into, given that the heroine is the sort of awkward little girl that I thought I was. I loved the idea of a secret place where children could be on their own

So what makes these different to any other set of classics? In a moment of inspiration Random House had the bright idea of actually asking Key stage 2 children what extra ingredients they could add to make children want to read. And does it work? Well, put it this way...my 13-year-old daughter announced that she had to read a book over the summer holiday and, without any prompting, spotted The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas...and proceeded to read it! Now, if you knew my 13-year-old daughter, you would realise that this is quite remarkable. She reads texts, blogs and tags by the thousand - but this is the first book she has read since going to high school, so all hail Vintage Classics!

Mary is a tough feisty character, who manages to turn a whole household, and the lives of those in it, completely upside down... The book is brim full of magic and joy

It displays all the verbal artistry and emotional force of its predecessor, burrowing deep into the minds of its intense central characters

The more mysterious elements of the novel's structure...make the book a giddy pleasure

An impressive novel

If you like Kennedy's work, with its cool wit, spare stylishness, sharp sense of place and world-worn tenderness, then you'll find all those attributes here

Always a bold writer, she observes the world with a refreshingly skewed intelligence, and her well-known darkness, sometimes verging on morbidity, is always leavened with wit and humour. She also writes beautifully

An amazing conception, one that will make you want to turn back and start again the moment you have finished...the writing is as taut and thrilling as Kennedy's prose always is and there is her usual wry laughter chuckling within it all

Complex and complicated in the very best way

This woman is a profound writer

Kennedy is as disconcertingly accurate at tenderness as at wildness... A passionate writer, on the edge and at risk

Kennedy writes with flaying precision about the things we won't often admit to ourselves, let alone speak aloud

A virtuoso of prose. Her phrasing is fine-tuned and supple to the highest degree: intuitive and subtle about the multifarious sensations of being alive

One of the most brilliant writers of her generation.

Kennedy's sixth novel might move by turns through mystery, love story and comedy of shipboard manners, but its central subject is the transgressive, near-sexual pleasure of passing off fiction as fact

A tricksy, dazzlingly playful novel from this exhilarating Scottish author

The story takes on a dual purpose, questioning the reader’s appreciation of what is truth and what is deception

Beth’s compulsive self-examination makes this novel as hard to turn away from as it is unsettling to read

She observes the world with a refreshingly skewed intelligence, and her well-known darkness is always leavened with wit and humour

It may take a while to find your land-legs after reading Kennedy, but the trip will have been well worth the effort

A stylistically experimental writer, Kennedy reveals the inner workings of those who peddle stories for a living

This is the magazine of the National Autistic Society: the review is written by someone with Asperger's Syndrome. "This book is a good murder mystery story but a better description of how th mind of a different person with some kind of special need looks upon how things work and come about.

This startlingly original story . . . Has surprised everyone-not least the author.The book is funny, gripping, sad and unstintingly entertaining.

So if you're interested in solving mysteries and want to learn about autism in children, you'll love this book

A triumph from first page to last . . . Haddon's prose is empathetic and you cannot help but be drawn into young Christpher's world

This is a unique book written from the perspective of a unique character . . . It is very easy to read and would satisfy anyone from eight to 88

I found this book highly entertaining and enthralling though it was a bit sad at times.