Giraffe is rich, difficult to describe...blade-sharp imagery...Giraffe is important as a work of art. It will probably change your life and if it does it will be for the better

Giraffe is a work of obvious passion and great skill

An outstanding debut, sparking with ideas and poetic qualities

[P]oetic, multilayered prose...the strangeness of the giraffes' short-lived "migration'' to Czechoslovakia, Ledgard has found an effective symbol for what he calls "the brief communist moment''

There's plenty to like in Legard's novel: not least the wondrous, and gentle, giraffes

A weird and wonderful tale

The writing lies between poetry and prose... Beautifully written

A deeply eccentric novel, often beautifully written, with a haunting atmosphere

A novel of grave emotional weight and colour. Whether she describes terrible or magical events, to read Ginny Baily is to pick up riches in every paragraph... It's a rare achievement

Ginny Baily writes with perception and insight, telling the stories of her many characters with great skill and eventually weaving them together into a satisfying whole. She clearly knows Africa and the people who live there, as her affection and understanding shine out. It's a compelling read, carrying you along effortlessly, each section creating its own momentum long before the connections become clear

Such is the exquisite, gossamer construction of Murakami's writing that everything he chooses to describe trembles with symbolic possibility

Vintage Murakami [and] easily the most erotic of [his] novels

[A] treat...Murakami captures the heartbeat of his generation and draws the reader in so completely you mourn when the story is done

Murakami's most famous coming of age novel of love, loss and longing

Catches the absorption and giddy rush of adolescent love... It is also, for all the tragic momentum and the apparently kamikaze consciousness of many of its characters, often funny and quirkily observed.

[A] treat . . . Murakami captures the heartbeat of his generation and draws the reader in so completely you mourn when the story is done.

One of the most poignant and evocative novels I have ever read

Poignant, romantic and hopeless, it beautifully encapsulates heartbreak and loss of faith

Quinn brings the period in question vividly to life: his research is exemplary, and his subject absorbing

All the ingredients of an upmarket page-turner

Ambitious, gripping and disturbingly well done

Beyond its splendid feel for the era’s chat and patter, the novel pits philanthropy and opportunism, ideals and selfishness, bracingly at odds

This novel is refreshingly different and contains a cornucopia of wonderful material and evocative descriptions

The best book I’ve read in ages… You have to read it.