It is ironic that today, while the Chinese government is very concerned to be seen as a leading world power, many Chinese people from all walks of life continue to be deprived of their basic rights. In this collection of poems entitled June Fourth Elegies, Liu Xiaobo pays a moving tribute to the sacrifices made during the events in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Considering the writer himself remains imprisoned, this book serves as a powerful reminder of his courage and determination and his great hearted concern for the welfare of his fellow country men and women

It's the nature of language to pitch itself against the smothering oneness of the state. Words want to be free. Liu Xiaobo's crime is called 'an incitement to subvert state power.' This is an administrative term for the exercise of free speech - the very activity, Liu writes, that is the mother of truth... We try to imagine the nightmarish reality of the closed trial, the confiscated life. We feel the force of Liu Xiaobo's efforts to transcend what he calls 'a paralysis of spirit'. And we see his face in his words

One cannot talk about these poems strictly in terms of poetry. They are a monument of rage against the murderous powers of injustice, one man's relentless counter-argument to the logic of totalitarian oppression - twenty years of defiance in the form of elegies to the fallen, the 'departed souls' of Tiananmen Square. The imprisoned Liu Xiaobo is surely one of the world's most ardent defenders of human freedom, of the right of every person to live in an open society governed by laws, not guns

What really speaks are the 20 elegies, all beautifully translated by the Chinese-American poet and publisher Yang

Crackling with suspense, The Devil Walks is a dense psychological thriller set in a richly imagined past. Moody and unsettling, it is filled with intrigue and uncertainty to keep the readers guessing until the last page

There's a real Turn of the Screw feel to this absorbing ghost tale, a genuine Gothic spinechiller and beautifully told

Chilling, creepy and utterly compelling . . . Fine creates a wonderful sense of place and the devilish captain Severin will haunt your psyche

I’m inspired by every word that she writes

Trainspotting may be a masterpiece but Skagboys is the reason the artist painted it, and sometimes that’s the most compelling story

A cracking read

It was never going to be light reading, but Welsh’s vigour, wit and energy still make it compulsive

His best work in many years… An essential read

Masterful - crude, violent and poetic by turns... Its banter, outrage and razor wit sing off the page. A film, one suspects, isn't far off

It's brilliant and even more thrilling than its predecessor

A brilliantly funny, scary, sweeping novel with all the energy of Welsh's debut, but imbued with a wider sense of political and social engagement

I'm not sure that in 2012 there will be a single novel, never mind half a dozen, with more verve or nous or life in it than Skagboys. Ye kin pure tell they Booker gadgies'll no huv the baws but...

Trainspotting may be a masterpiece but Skagboys is the reason the artist painted it, and sometimes that's the most compelling story

A cracking read.

Skagboys is a compelling tale...a seriously entertaining piece of work

Skagboys, technically, is a prequel to the Leith author's brilliant 1993 debut...the result is a longer, deeper and more affecting work, one which explains and explores the circumstances under which Renton, Sick Boy, Tommy, Spud and Begbie - a roll call as familiar as Disney's Seven Dwarves for readers of a certain age - became the characters they did... It's an undeniably funny book, funny in that three-wit way of being at once visceral and true. Welsh's knack for dialogue - both ineternal and conversational - remains virtuosic and often exhilarating. It makes for characters you can't help but care about even the psychopaths and amoral chancers like Begbie and Sick Boy... Welsh's finest work to date

One of the most significant writers in Britain. He writes with style, imagination, wit and force.

The voice of punk, grown up, grown wiser and grown eloquent.

It was never going to be light reading, but Welsh's vigour, wit and energy still make it compulsive

While you can place him in a literary tradition which flows from Alasdair Gray and James Kelman (and maybe Joyce before that), Welsh remains a lapsed punk, hung up on the Velvets and Iggy Pop

Like Trainspotting, Skagboys thrusts along with the exuberance of its episodic stories. Welsh hasn't lost his flair for comic set pieces

Welsh somehow manages to be both the Zola of Therese Raquin, and Dostoevsky's Underground Man, ranging between quasi-scientific perspective and a more immersed, troubling one. That he does so for the most part in a furious low Scots vernacular - filthy, or fulthy, and hugely funny at times - may seem remarkable

If you too loved the colloquial tangle of Trainspotting, you'll find a similar rhythm in Skagboys

Welsh revisits his old demons to give us the Trainspotting prequel...Expect more of the same raw wit and energy.

Engaging, heartfelt and brutal.

Quite simply a masterpiece…at least as assured and vibrant in its characterization as Trainspotting, Skagboys is even more on the money politically… this novel more than any other , (including its brilliant predecessor) stands as our spiritual and moral history.

There is enough of what Welsh does well — needle-sharp dialogue, vivid characters and a certainty of place — to make Skagboys his best work in many years…an essential read.

Welsh always spins his yarns with grisly élan.

I ended up charmed beyond measure, if that is the right word for a novel whose odd moments of poignance are regularly booted into touch by death, disillusionment and dereliction.

Every bit as impressive as Trainspotting

Visceral, tragic and comic, with Welsh’s schlock-shock appeal

If you enjoyed Trainspotting, you will adore this prequel... I think that Welsh has achieved the impossible and produced a prequel that betters the main text

Filthy, furious and very funny, this is Welsh back on blistering top form

The strength of Cline's first novel, other than its geeky referencing of 1980s pop culture, is the characterisation of the Candide-like Wade and his redemptive quest in both VR and the real world.

If you grew up with an Atari or maybe had a Commodore 64 back in the day, you are going to really enjoy this one. Cline really captures the feeling of those good old days in Ready Player One.

Cline [crafts] a fresh and imaginative world from our old toy box ... Cline strikes the nerves of nerd culture as expertly as Andy played that skeleton organ in The Goonies.