In lucid, graceful prose she [Miller] manages to bring us closer to the life and work of a poet who never seemed that far away... I didn't want this book to end.

An enlightening and perceptive introduction to (or reminder of) the great Romantic poet's life and work.

Outstanding... [Miller's] knowledge of all things Keatsian is formidable... For newcomers to Keats, Miller's is the best short introduction I have come across.

Miller disrobes the myth, while helping us to appreciate what she calls Keats's "vertiginous originality". As a wittily perceptive introduction to (or reminder of) the poet and his work, her book is unlikely to be surpassed any time soon.

Lucasta Miller's task, which she carries out very successfully, is to strip away what we think when we think about Keats... This excellent book... enters an already crowded market of Keats biographies, but earns its place through its firm basis in precise reading. Miller is empathetic, and relishes Keats's best phrases.

Lucasta Miller's brilliant life of Keats, told through a close reading of "nine poems and one epitaph", reminds us more than once of the way in which Keats can deploy Shakespearean techniques to stop us in our readerly tracks. A timely and fresh re-appropriation of Keats... satisfying, engaging and accessible.

Excellent... [Keats] challenges us to make up our own minds about the self-styled 'chamelion poet'.

A readable guide to the poet's life.

Creates a vivid picture of Keats's writing process.

In this excellent translation by Yan Yan, Golden Age demonstrates that Wang Xiaobo is one of the most original writers in post-Mao China. At once hilarious and charged with serious political discourse, Golden Age is a tour de force. It is as playful as Animal Farm by Orwell and as complex as Master and Margarita by Bulgakov. Anyone who is interested in modern China should read this book

Every page is a surprise. The novel is outrageous, startling, and very, very funny

One of the great writers to have emerged in post-Mao China. Wang Xiaobo excels in writing about love and sex - and coming of age - in an arid and bizarre world. With beautiful simplicity, he fills the reader with aching poignancy, and yet makes them want to laugh out loud

Like a Chinese Kurt Vonnegut. By turns lyrical and satirical, Wang Xiaobo's sexual comedies set during the Chinese Cultural Revolution are as improbable as that genre sounds. His long overdue publication in English comes as a gift. Golden Age is funny and brave and profound

An iconic writer with a cult status who influenced an entire generation of Chinese writers, Wang Xiaobo culls a different personal memory from the days of the Cultural Revolution. A secret sexual affair between two youths sent to the countryside for reeducation opens a window unto love and punishment, ideology and privacy, reason and absurdity. The wistful triumph in Golden Age bespeaks a time when sanity was survival at its minimum. For all its dark humor, irony, and matter-of-fact fornication, the novel carries tremendous heart in what it encourages the individual to feel. A must-read novel

Until reading Wang Xiaobo's Golden Age, I had not seen a work that captures the ironies and contradictions Wang Er endures living in a communist country in a decidedly capitalist world. Just my saying this sounds academic, but the novel is not academic. It's hilarious, loose, surprising and so smart. I am reminded of Heller's Catch 22, but whereas circularity was the enemy for Yossarian, it might well be Wang Er's ally

Startlingly funny, darkly profound, Golden Age is one of the most memorable novels published in Chinese language in the past hundred years, and it will still be read a hundred years from now

A comic take on oppressive regimes . . . wonderful euphemisms, wide-ranging irreverence, abetted by a voice that is variously smart, quirky, or sarcastic . . . entertaining . . . An unusual writer worth discovering for his humor and flair

A novel of lust and loss during China's Cultural Revolution . . . The idea of how to stand up to power underlies Golden Age

Startling and direct . . . Golden Age has long been admired by Chinese readers for its clever take on sexual rebellion, and its innovative voice and narrative style. Using the language of the state to highlight the absurdity of their laws, Xiaobo made a satire that is both amusing and effective. This fable remains relevant decades later and thousands of miles away

Wang Xiaobo was arguably the most influential intellectual of the post-Tiananmen generation, a nonchalant provocateur as well as an unconventional, anti-authoritarian thinker whose writing has stood the test of time

Golden Age, long admired in many circles, may prove a revelation to readers outside China. Wang Xiaobo steeped himself in the literatures of East and West, and the blending of influences - including Proust and Twain - makes for a searingly funny and fearless narration full of brilliant head-long riffs on sex, time, history, and the terrifying absurdities of the Cultural Revolution. Bawdy, earthy, cerebral, outrageous, bleakly hilarious and off-handedly brave, this novel is like nothing else

Admired for his cynicism, irony, humor, readers and critics around the world now widely regard Wang Xiaobo as one of the most important modern Chinese authors ... His [writing is] considered crucial to understanding China's recent past

Chinese author Wang Xiaobo died aged just 44 in 1997, but his masterpiece, Golden Age (Penguin, April), has now been translated into English in full for the first time by Yan Yan. It's a scabrous, bawdy novel set in the years of the Cultural Revolution. It's also very moving.

No solemn, reverent account, this is a book of many erections ... playful, though undercut with cynicism

Amazingly assured first novel. Magee is too good a writer... Gentle as well as brutal

As beautiful as it is brilliant. Reading Close to Home is like crossing a frontier into a new and thrilling territory

Close To Home announces an exciting new voice - at once open and wary, tender and unyielding - and sharply alive to the pains and discoveries and mysteries of youth

Ringing out clear and true as a bell, it gleams with tenderness and perception. There are few narrators so unassuming and unaffected, yet so full of sharp intelligence

Precise, compulsive, companionable and genuinely moving. Michael Magee writes a world we see far too little of in contemporary literature. We need books like this

A beautiful and devastating debut novel about political memory, violence, masculinity, and the impossibility of escaping your origins.

A sharp and humane novel about a young man, and a city, caught in the painful throes of reimagining themselves. It rings with authenticity, and the wisdom of hard-won observation and experience - a hymn to the ways in which art can be a lifeline and an escape. Michael Magee's debut is an important addition to the burgeoning new canon of Belfast literature

Compulsively readable - you will need to know how this ends!

Sharp, immediate, beautiful writing. A vivid portrait of modern Belfast and of how our circumstances shape our lives. Every character is drawn with nuance and complexity, with great precision and attention to detail. I really loved this book

Artfully crafted, compassionate, precise and unafraid. I loved this book

Close to Home tracks brilliantly written characters across a vividly drawn Belfast

One of the year’s most distinctive and immersive debuts . . . Drawing on his own experiences, Michael Magee refreshes the post-Troubles novel to wrestle with his community’s painful heritage of violence and poverty. It sounds bleak, but Sean’s voice fizzes with life

It's hard to find fault with a debut novel that unfold its storylines and characters with such care, handling themes of class, masculinity, addiction and trauma with both tenderness and a matter-of-factness

Michael Magees Close to Home is yet another brilliant novel to emerge from Northern Ireland, making sense of the impact of the long conflict and the transition to troubled peace; Magee powerfully delineates the psychology of those crushed by betrayal

An emotionally satisfying book with wise and moving moments

A humorous take on Hollywood romcoms

Sexy, funny, thought-provoking and everything I hoped it would be. Her best novel since American Wife.

Romantic Comedy combines humour with poignancy and a lot of heart.

Sittenfeld's novel continues her wider project of exploring the possibility for a kind of redemptive idealism within our flawed world

Sittenfeld has penned another exquisitely written novel

A fizzy love letter to the prototypical romcom

So much of Sittenfeld's work exists in the dissection and comprehension of female desire

Flirting with the tropes of its namesake genre, this playful novel follows Sally, a writer on an "S.N.L."-like show called "Night Owls," who falls in love with one of its guest hosts. Their relationship develops via e-mail in the post-grocery-wiping, pre-vaccine days of covid-19. When Sally decides to visit her beloved in L.A., their time together in his Topanga mansion requires her to navigate incredulity, insecurity, and an offer that she feels is an "affront to my independence." The novel is preoccupied with the instinctual nature of self-sabotage, and with the fulfillment that can come from defying ingrained impulses

Insightful romcom sparkles with real wit and wisdom

Whip smart and really funny

Scores big on giving readers an insight into the machinations of a TV writers-room

Full of dazzling banter and sizzling chemistry

If you ever wanted a backstage pass to Saturday Night Live, this book is for you

Excellent

Both a brilliant portrait of the comedy world and a witty grown-up love story. Lives up to its name