A compelling mix of fable with the day-to-day account of a working-class boy… It is hard to think of a novel that so precisely and vividly conveys the pain and disorientation of puberty

Is there a living writer better at conveying the disconcerting relationship between time and memory?... There is pleasure, too, in watching Petterson shift through the gears from pleasure to unease in one of those gloriously sinuous sentences that have become something of a trademark

Petterson is remarkably gifted

It packs a powerful punch… A clear-cut jewel of nameless dread and nagging anxiety: Scandinavian gloom par excellence.

His eerily terse prose luxuriates in the hazy strangeness of the Danish landscape and is particularly brilliant at nailing adolescence as an inchoate, restless state in which life is felt much more fiercely than it is understood.

Like an old photograph, it illuminates everything to a sudden point of clarity… Petterson’s writing is so evocative of life on the cusp of becoming a teenager that when I close the book, I go back to the beginning and I re-read… Echoland is a novel that tastes of the sea and the sun and of frightening and beautiful thunderstorms.

Arikawa has a lightness of touch that elevates this to a tale about loyalty and friendship ... while speaking to our basic human need for companionship

Heart-wrenching but uplifting

The Travelling Cat Chronicles is why I read books. This beautiful story has everything. It's funny, heart-warming, heart-breaking and kind.

Prepare to have your heart strings tugged by this quirky tale . . . It's a deceptively gentle story that you won't need to be a cat lover to fall for.

Sweet, sad and lovely, this is a roadtrip novel with a difference

This is the book I am giving everyone . . . the book I am recommending to anyone buying something Japan-related or cat-related, and, quite possibly, the book I am placing in someone's hand when they ask me what my favourite book is. For a bookseller, that is the highest accolade a book can ever receive

A beautiful travelogue

This story of a cat, a man, self-sacrifice and friendship will have you totally captivated ... An addictive tale of friendship and love.

i found myself sobbing ... unable, unwilling to let this joyful little book go

Stunningly beautiful. Tender, warm, sad and uplifting

I would urge people not to dismiss this as a 'cat book'; it is too much about human interaction and relationships to be so simply defined. A novel with wide appeal. I predict it will make a popular Christmas gift.

I'm not ashamed to say it had me at meow.

A book that stands out within the world of cat literature ... and it's a world worth exploring.

I found myself sobbing ... unable, unwilling, to let this little book go.

The Travelling Cat Chronicles is as much a loving tribute to Japan’s obsession with and reverence for cats as it is an endearing introduction for non-Japanese readers to the country’s ever-fascinating culture and deeply rooted traditions.

A book that speaks volumes about our need for connection - human, feline or otherwise.

This touching novel of a brave cat and his gentle, wise human will resonate with lovers of animal tales, quiet stories of friendship, and travelogues alike.

Gentle, soft-spoken, and full of wisdom

A delight to read

Prepare to have your heartstrings tugged by this quirky tale

A sprightly, digressive, intriguing fandango on life and time

These individuals converge to confront each other in the big shabby house, like characters in a Chekhov play. At first, hellish implosion looms. Slowly, erratically, connection creeps in. Lux quietly mediates. Ire softens. Sophia at last eats something. Art resees Nature..."Winter" gives the patient reader a colorful, witty - yes, warming - divertissement

With Iris and Lux as catalysts, scenes from Christmas past unfold, and our narrow views of Sophia and Art widen and deepen, filled with the secrets and substance of their histories, even as the characters themselves seem to expand. As in Sophia's case, for Art this enlargement is announced by a hallucination - "not a real thing," as Lux tells Iris, whose response speaks for the book's own expansive spirit: "Where would we be without our ability to see beyond what it is we're supposed to be seeing?"