Like Hardy before him, Richards seems determined not only to dignify the inhabitants of his native rural community, but to give them a universal significant as well

Astonishing... fiercely imagined and brilliantly rendered

This is a book that is redolent of Annie Proulx in its elegiac narrative, while achieving a depth of touch that feels truthful, individual and glorious

Appallingly funny

Exceptionally illuminating... brilliantly acute and enticingly widely read work. It should be compulsory reading for anyone in the reviewing trade and committed to memory before aspiring writers put pen to paper. For those who intend to pursue the underrated calling of reading fiction without wishing to add to its ranks, it will not only make reading more pleasurable, but articulate what you may have felt but never been able to express

James Wood is Britain's lost literary critic. It's impossible to read this book and not want immediately to turn back to the authors he discusses...and read more of them, more closely, yourself. And very little literary criticism achieves that

Intelligent, well-read and extremely confident

Should find a place on every novel-lover's shelf. It has the quality all useful works of criticism should have: refined taste, keen observation, and the ability to make the reader argue, passionately, with it

Fondly and delicately pieces back together what the deconstructors put asunder

Displaying a playful exuberance wonderfully at odds with the dry, jargon-strewn tradition of academic criticism, this deft, slender volume analyses how novelists pull rabbits out of hats