Though there are some excellent one-liners (“He was no oil painting –unless the painting was a Picasso”), the novel is more than just a spoof: Tim Walker brings to his plot the care of a proper crime novelist… Every character is nailed with a deft line…Smoke Over Malibu reminded me a little of This Book Will Save Your Life by AM Homes in its portrayal of LA misfits finding companionship. It’s a hardboiled story with a soft centre. Characters grow, wounds are healed and old friends become lovers. I can’t help thinking that it would make a great film, if only they still made films like it.

Funny, quirky and confidently written, Smoke Over Malibu isn’t at all what you expect and that’s half of the charm.

Donne, Herbert, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, George Eliot, Dostoevsky, Henry James - these are the great psychologists - far greater than Freud or Klein or Jung

The best translation of Crime and Punishment currently available... An especially faithful re-creation...with a coiled-spring kinetic energy... Don't miss it

Crime and Punishment...is about a big subject - the meaning of life - yet it is gritty, gripping and it's depiction of city life gives it a modern, timeless feel

This fresh, new translation...provides a more exact, idiomatic, and contemporary rendition of the novel that brings Fyodor Dostoevsky's tale achingly alive... It succeeds beautifully

Lifelong friendships, secrets, and pages I couldn't turn fast enough. The Fifth Letter is one of my favorite books this year, and Nicola Moriarty is now on my short list of favorite women's fiction authors

Readers . . . will race to the end as a credit to Nicola's fine sense of pacing and suspense. An author to watch

The meandering stories of these women are held together with the powerful question of who wrote the last letter, which reveals just how precarious childhood friendships are . . . the book adeptly exposes the striking differences among the four friends and the five letters

A delightful, heartwarming exploration of the twists and turns of true friendship, The Fifth Letter was simply delicious from the very first page to the last. Relatable characters, a fast-moving plot and just the right amount of mystery. I was hooked!

A brilliant and compelling novel where a twenty-year-old friendship is tested by the secrets they have been keeping. The plot is fascinating and I found the characters likeable and irritating at the same time. Playing on the anonymity of the letters, the author creates suspense and anticipation as truths - and lies - are spilled page after page

This is one of those books you have to make sure you've got nothing scheduled when you start reading. Because once you start, you're not going to want to stop. Page turner indeed. Wow. And some scenes that made me cry

With secrets and intrigue, this is a compulsive read

Entertaining

A darkly humorous story about friendship

Intrigue, hatred and accusations - phew, it kept me guessing to the end

The premise and its execution will grab readers and refuse to let go. Readers may pick this one up to see how Moriarty's writing compares to her sister Liane's wildly popular novels, but they'll race to the end as a credit to Nicola's fine sense of pacing and suspense. An author to watch.

Entertaining and easy to read

It worked beautifully for me.

Impertinent, irreverent and very funny.

A series of elegant meditations.

Moving and often genuinely tense—as well as richly informative.

[It is] full of playful wit and understatement… A very short book but it contains more to enjoy and chew over than most novels three times its length.

But The Noise of Time shares with Leo Tolstoy’s The Kreutzer Sonata - another text which has at its centre the tyranny of music and its physiologically devastating potential – the capacity for evocation of music-making that is worthy of the real thing.

A brilliant portrait of an artist trying not to sign away his soul.

At his thought-provoking best… A story about the collision of Art and Power, about human compromise, human cowardice and human courage. It is the work of a master.

[The Noise of Time is] disturbing, darkly comical and an ideal intellectual palate-cleanser to kick off the new year.

[A] densely written, masterfully told tale.

A new, short, highly concentrated novel…meditating in brief paragraphs on the art and compromise with power over 50 years in the life of the composer Shostakovich.

Moving and often genuinely tense.

A brilliant reflection of one man’s consciousness, amid the fear and terror of authoritarian rule. Completely gripping and informative and entertaining, it is a classic Barnes concoction.

Pulsing with riffs on love, music and honesty both personal and artistic, it depicts a man who knows he’s a coward, even if his scores are courageous… Barnes also captures the farcical side of life in Soviet Russia.

A tour de force by a master novelist at the top of his game.

Barnes’s prose is thoughtful and elegant.

A great novel.

Barnes pulls together all the strands of an artlessly diffuse and meticulously imagined portrait of life under tyranny. It is masterfully done.

A distinctive and, as always with Barnes, highly readable marriage of suave execution and chilly, grown-up subject matter.

With its three-act structure, dramatic tension, lyrical passages and recurring motifs, the novel has an operatic quality. Offering an intimate portrait of the artist and an overview of Russia’s troubled past, it’s a compelling read.

You’ll love this.

The Noise of Time is a brilliant impersonation, both as a novel and as a portrayal of the “real” historical Shostakovich.

A gripping story, a fascinating portrait of a period of history, and a brilliantly in-depth character study… Beautifully written… Philosophically and intellectually enriching.

A thoughtful, moving read about integrity, compromise and courage.

Barnes has some striking setpieces in this probing, intellectually robust novel.

The fear, danger and paranoia felt in those times rise memorably from the pages.

Barnes stands out, so vivid are his images and so poignant his insights. His works stand among the classics of the postmodern era, and for good reason.

A marvellous meditation on the Cold War era and particularly the battles of conscience that besiege a man living under tyranny.

The tone is intimate and aphoristic, the paragraphs succinct.

A fascinating account of the life of Dimitri Shostakovich… Perceptive, symbolic… The Noise of Time is an essential read, and not only for musicians.

A finely-tuned masterpiece... Barnes' prose is supreme.

An intimate portrait of a public intellectual living in a totalitarian atmosphere… Immersive… The Noise of Time presents a compelling story in engaging and original prose.

Kaleidoscopic portrait… Barnes deftly constructs a life history... A masterfully told story of survival. *****

Beautifully composed.

Without a doubt, Barnes has succeeded the high expectations of the people who waited with bated breath for the release of The Noise of Time. In a work that feels both original and authentic, he encourages us to consider the importance of art, in whatever form, and the influence it can have on us all.

Barnes at his best...a poignant fictional recreation of the artistic agonies of the composer Shostakovich.

A very sensitive account of how art can be in conflict with naked political power.

A book I’d like to tuck myself away for a day to read. It’s short in length but by all accounts big on ideas and power.

His Dmitri Shostakovich is completely believable.

[A] brilliant study of the relationship between art and an oppressive regime… A compelling depiction of the country’s history and a richly imagined close-up of the artist.

A poignant and thoughtful portrait of the persecuted artist.

[It is] elegant.

Another Brilliant reinvention by Barnes.

My favourite book of this year is The Noise of Time.

His best for ages. It is gripping, outward-looking, generous with plot and atmosphere and far beyond the powers of McEwan, Amis, Ishiguro, Rushidie et al…. This book grabbed me by the nuts like nothing of his since Starting at the Sun.

[A] haunting novel on the agonies of Shostakovitch under Stalin and his successors… I recommended it to a friend who for years was one of the great reviewers at the Washington Post. His reply: “It’s an extraordinary book. It’s a book that makes me wish I were reviewing again.”

A mini-masterpiece.

An elegant portrait of Shostakovitch.

Written with Barnes’ characteristic low-key elegance, the book becomes a meditation on artistic integrity and its limits in a brutal regime

An impressive narrative of personal integrity.

As a portrait of the composer and his time this book is a complete success… The Noise of Time is also convincing in the details… A book in which a certain grim humour is never too far away.

[A] gem of a novel.

A compelling read that combines sharp insights, lyrical passages and dramatic tension.

Black humour and retrospective anguish prevail in Julian Barnes’s latest novel.

A beautifully told story, this is subtle and powerful.

This small novel is an elegant and unflinching account of a life lived under extreme pressure, during Stalin’s Great Terror. Julian Barnes fleshes out the life of the composer Shostakovich whose life is under threat. A powerful story, well-crafted and beautifully written about the humanity and torments of a creative soul… An informative, thought provoking read.

An immense emotional and intellectual punch.