Extraordinary. Entertainment of a very high order… One of the best books of the year

Dazzling... A cerebral thriller that's both intellectually engaging and emotionally compelling. A lively tour de force

Powers...can nail emotional complexities with precision, while using his characters to explore how emerging technologies might shape our lives

It’s not possible for Powers to write an uninteresting book... If Powers were an American writer of the nineteenth century, which writer would he be? He’d probably be the Herman Melville of Moby-Dick. His picture is that big

An extraordinary and brilliant novel of ideas

Tense and heartbreaking

An ingenious, ambitious, at times dizzily cerebral work... It soars and spins... The novel attains an aching, melancholy beauty

A splendid intellectual adventure [and] a heartbreaking love story

Nothing less than brilliant

James Wood has been called our best young critic. This is not true. He is our best critic; he thinks with a sublime ferocity… To enter Wood’s mind is to cross a threshold: from the reviewer commonplaces that pass for essay-writing into the intellectual daring that portends literary permanence

The most influential critic of his generation

Deservedly famous for the intellectual dazzle, literary acuteness and moral seriousness of his essays on everything from the King James Bible to Don DeLillo ... Wood writes like a dream

James Wood, the critic, is one of the few living practitioners of his craft who will be read fifty years from now

Packed with…insight… [and a] concern for the messiness of emotional truth… Over the years, as this volume demonstrates, Wood has learned not only to dissect that habit of mind, but also to practise it

A powerful storyteller immersed in the nuances of human relationships

Strout really can write you into a world until you feel you are there with her, in that house, that life, that little Podunk of a place

Writing of this quality comes from a commitment to listening, from a perfect attunement to the human condition, from an attention to reality so exact that it goes beyond a skill and becomes a virtue

Strout, always good, just keeps getting better

A writer at the peak of her powers

It's hard to believe that a year after the astonishing My Name Is Lucy Barton Elizabeth Strout could bring us another book that is by every measure its equal, but what Strout proves to us again and again is that where she's concerned, anything is possible. This book, this writer, are magnificent.

Strout animates the ordinary with astonishing force

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