A brilliant debut – a tender, nostalgic and, at times, darkly hilarious exploration of black boyhood, masculinity and grief. A gorgeous and necessary collection from one of my favourite writers

A remarkable year for first collections. The best, for this reader, was Kayo Chingonyi’s Kumukanda… Whether recalling his parents’ deaths or celebrating the art of the mixtape, Chingonyi’s poise is astonishing

His poems are intelligent and moving and find the perfect balance between intricacy and directness

Chingonyi thrillingly integrates…rhythms and rhymes with more conventional poetic metrics…with a rare energy, intelligence and sophistication

[A] wonderful debut… A subtle and affecting, lyrical and powerful collection that explores boyhood, rites of passage, the ancient and the modern world

The book emerges as being about memory and identity in the best and broadest sense… Chingonyi’s poetic voice and style are both highly entertaining and adaptable mixing form with free verse and jargon with slang… But for all its lyrical elegance and at times mannered diction, this is angry and defiant writing, determined to “master the language”, as “The Cricket Test” has it, of privileged white male canonical literature as if to prove a point… Chingonyi goes one better, using his lyric panache to honour pop references and cultural experiences of personal and communal significance while also turning the tables, casting a wry and intelligent eye on our wider attitudes… These terse, memorable poems are testament to the best of Chingonyi’s gifts. Impassioned, witty, socially and politically engaged…the poems turn irony to impressive effect in dissecting our dubious “post-race moment”… Kumukanda is an authentic and convincing book of poems in its many nuanced portrayals and unflinching reflections; rarely is it content to gloss or deceive… Kumukanda is an intricate and intense collection, heady with feeling but guided by thoughtful reflection

Navigating the experience of growing up with music, flair and a jaw-dropping formal range, this collection is a thing of beauty

Full of nostalgia and gentleness as well as being sharply observant

Chingonyi’s poems are full of questions that need asking. His gift is for pushing poems further than you expected them to go. [A] striking quest of a debut

Powerful… These poems are essential and urgent and shine a light on British culture in an unique and spellbinding way

Kumakanda is an essential collection from one of the UK's most exciting poets. Kayo's poetry is beautiful, thoughtful, musical and nostalgic

A wonderful debut: music, race, deracination, love and death are all woven into a compelling portrait of a young man growing up, rendered in poems that are elegant yet conversational, fluent yet profoundly skillful, touched with heart-stopping lyricism. For the reader, an initiation not to be missed

When James Baldwin described the writer's goal as stringing together sentences that were as clean as a bone, he wasn't to know that poet Kayo Chingonyi's debut collection Kumukanda would achieve exactly that

The title poem Kumukanda is elegant, eloquent and moving... For all the particularity of his subject matters and his openness in exploring them, it’s the fine and sophisticated writing that makes me return to these poems

Exceedingly powerful; by turns furious, tender and bittersweet, taking as it does the overall theme of in-betweens. Ancestry versus contemporary rites of passage. The ambiguous versus the undeniable. Who you are, and who you choose to be seen as, versus who others perceive you to be

Chingonyi is the living writer who inspires and influences me the most

A beautiful exploration of grief and boyhood... Each poem is delivered with such precision and deftness

Pooley delivers not only acerbic, enchanting Iona but a compelling, tangled cast of quirky, complicated characters so engaging, it's enough to make you miss crowded commuter trains

This feel-good ensemble story will bring joy to readers who loved Anxious People and Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine-not to mention fans of quirky London-set fare such as Ted Lasso...a warm, fun pick-me-up of a book

Clare Pooley has found a delightful way to bring home the point that we need each other

Leaving you with that fuzzy feeling you want from a feel-good book

Entertaining and uplifting

Filled with delightful characters... this heart-warming book explores relationships and the dilemmas of everyday life

Tackling many relevant issues, it's a heart-warming read

Poignant, totally joyful, this is a great read

A feel-good read, with great characters to care about, it takes current issues seriously but adds plenty of humour

[It leaves] the reader with that fuzzy feeling you want from a feel-good book. Fans of her previous hit, The Authenticity Project, will not be disappointed

A feel-good tale about the power of real-life connections

You can always rely on Pooley to deliver not just wonderful, lively characters but a story that leaves you feeling uplifted and hopeful

Batuman has taken what made The Idiot so brilliant, distilled it, and created an equally brilliant new work. Either/Or is unbridled joy.

Funny... Unforgettable... Batuman is particularly good on sex and sexual politics... The star feature is the narration... garrulous, rambunctious... full of baroque riffs and digressions.

A fresh voice is a rare thing, and Elif Batuman is one such.

Either/Or is extremely funny and delightfully ludic, as it probes the very act of reading from the point of view of confused university student Selin.

I was desperately looking forward to Elif Batuman's Either/Or, and it more than lived up to it.

Re-encountering Selin...felt like being reunited with an old friend.

Hilarious.

I greatly enjoyed the comic zing of Elif Batuman's delightful Either/Or

Witty, intelligent and funny... [Selin's] inner monologue is addictive enough to read a thousand more pages of, and I can only cross my fingers that this isn't the last instalment of the series.

Just as funny and self-aware and clever as The Idiot.

Funny, wry and insightful

Laugh out loud…hilarious and thoughtful