One of the sweetest, most delicately-written stories I've read in a long time. One man's walk along the length of England to save the life of a dying woman. Each chapter describes a different encounter along the way, with a definite nod to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Philosophical, intriguing, and profoundly moving.

Uplifting, funny and delicate

At times almost unbearably moving.

A brilliant and charming novel: full of comic panache yet acute and poignant.

one of the most moving, uplifting, inspiring novels I've ever read

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is a funny book, a wise book, a charming book – but never cloying. It’s a book with a savage twist, and yet never seems manipulative. Perhaps because Harold himself is just wonderful...This book may follow a pattern set by another radio dramatist-turned-novelist, David Nicholls, whose One Day has now sold more than a million copies and been made into a successful film simply because one reader said to another ‘I love this book’ over and over again. So I’m telling you now: I love this book.

Wonderful

A terrific book, comic and sad and very honest. Harold is a wonderfully-drawn character... his story is at the same time emotionally gruelling and yet ultimately uplifting.

a gorgeously poignant novel of hope and transformation

Life-affirming delight. A comic pleasure.

A tender, funny debut about second chances and regained love as a man takes to the road on an unusual quest.

The odyssey of a simple man, original, subtle and touching.

Compelling and truly wonderful. It made me laugh out loud at times and brought tears to my eyes. There are sentences that are just brilliant and well observed.

I was completely blown away. I thought I was about to read a comic novel but what can I say - it was indeed funny, but tender, ironic and deeply moving, a really wonderful book.

Harold Fry is infuriating, hilarious and completely out of his depth, but I held my breath at his every blister and cramp and, felt, as if by turning the pages, I might help his impossible quest succeed. Marvellous!

From the moment I met Harold Fry, I didn't want to leave him. Impossible to put down.

Tender and funny, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry shows that even our frailties can be uplifting and redemptive.

A delightfully original and engaging debut.

I loved this book. I loved its purity, its brutality and unerring honesty. I don't think I have read such richly composed metaphors before. They are like shooting stars glittering across each page. I can't believe this is her first novel- I wait with bated breath for her next.

Harold's unlikely pilgrimage takes him the length of the country - and into the deepest parts of himself. This beautifully written tale is by turns funny, touching, farcical and heroic. A very unusual and uplifting debut.

This book is like a naive painting: simple and profound. It is a moving story , full of heart, laced through with wry wit. I loved Harold and Maureen and their separate journeys. It felt like a celebration of being alive, being human. Beautiful!

Accomplished BBC playwright Joyce’s debut novel is a gentle and genteel charmer, brimming with British quirkiness yet quietly haunting in its poignant and wise examination of love and devotion. Sure to become a bookclub favorite.

Joyce’s beguiling debut is another modest-seeming story of ‘ordinary’ English lives that enthralls and moves you as it unfolds.

Tender and profound, fresh and funny, a debut that provokes thoughts of reconciliation

[Joyce] has created, with admirable ease, the kind of character whom readers will struggle to forget, who is genuine from the very beginning... emotionally gripping... a 21st-century morality tale that ultimately, and perhaps surprisingly, celebrates the kindness of strangers

Impressive... Tender and thought-provoking

A moving, redemptive story

[Harold's] tragicomic journey has the affecting simplicity of a modern-day parable

I found myself taking days over it just because I wanted to savour every few pages. An enchanting, gentle book.

If language - lyric, lovely and funny, steeped in County Tipperary - and women (men come and go, rarely center a chapter and are often useless, sometimes cruel) are of no interest to you, The Queen of Dirt Island is not your next read. Ryan's book is a celebration, in an embroidered, unrestrained, joyful, aphoristic and sometimes profane style, of both ... The Queen of Dirt Island gives the women their due, and the reader is rewarded.

Donal Ryan's The Queen of Dirt Island is a little Irish miracle ... there's as much implicit wisdom in these pages about how to live as how to write ... Ryan has his own emotional range and a way of capturing the largeness of what look like tiny lives but aren't

Ambitious, unsettling and funny, this book is full of desire and mischief with surprising results.