Makkai’s second novel defies genre – part literary mystery, part comedy of manners, part wickedly funny satire. Whichever way you look at it, it’s remarkable.

Rebecca Makkai is a writer to watch, as sneakily ambitious as she is unpretentious.

Makkai humorously turns the conventional family saga on its head, in a clever exploration of metamorphosis and secrecy.

Makkai has written a novel that reads almost like early Muriel Spark – clever, competent, and concealing an unsettling and skewed reality ... The hand that keeps giving the kaleidoscope another turn, controlling just how the pieces land, isn't fate, of course. It's the artist, Makkai is one.

A big-hearted gothic novel, an intergenerational mystery, a story of heartbreak and a romance, all crammed into one grand Midwestern estate ... A juicy and moving story of art and love and the luck it takes for either to last.

An entertaining, ambitious saga ... Makkai's lyrical prose quietly lifts off the page while her carefully crafted plot charges forward.

This novel is stunning: ambitious, readable, and intriguing. Its gothic elements, complexity, and plot twists are reminiscent of Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin. Chilling and thoroughly enjoyable ... A daring takeoff from her entertaining debut.

Makkai’s second novel is a lively and clever story starring an estate with an intricate history . . . The book is exceptionally well constructed, with engaging characters busy reinventing themselves throughout, and delightful twists that surprise and satisfy

Charmingly clever and mischievously funny, Makkai follows her enthusiastically praised first novel, The Borrower (2011), with an intriguingly structured tale — each section takes a step back in time — set on a fabled, possibly haunted estate north of Chicago ... Her offbeat characters and suspenseful story could have added up to a stylish romp. Instead, Makkai offers that and much more as she stealthily investigates the complexities of ambition, sexism, violence, creativity, and love in this diverting yet richly dimensional novel.

Makkai fulfills the promise of her debut with this witty and darkly acerbic novel set in the rich soils of an artists' colony. The inverted timeline of the multi-generational narrative deepens the layered mysteries at its heart. As decades unfold in reverse, we find that nothing about Laurelfield's various inhabitants is at it first appears, and neither talent nor history sits on solid ground.

Rebecca Makkai's The Hundred-Year House is a funny, sad and delightful romp through the beginning, middle and end of an artists' colony as well as the family mansion that sheltered it and the family members who do and don't survive it. Told backwards from the viewpoints of an array of eccentric and intertwined characters, the story's secrets are revealed with stunning acuity. An ambitious work, well realized.

Rebecca Makkai is the most refreshing kind of writer there is: both genius and generous. Every masterfully crafted connection, every lovingly nestled detail, is a gift to the attentive reader. Playful, poignant, and richly rewarding, The Hundred-Year House is the most absorbing book I've read in ages. Before you've finished, you'll want to read it again.

Savit’s story is aimed at anyone who will listen. A 10-year-old may identify with Anna. A teenage reader will absorb the deftness and sophistication of the telling. An adult will find his or her expectations challenged.

There’s much for adults to love about Gavriel Savit’s beautiful tale

The book that brings magic to the 20th century's darkest hour

Savit captures the moods, fears and delightful conversation of this odd couple on their implausible odyssey. It’s a touching tale, both sad and sweet

An astonishingly accomplished debut about war, survival and humanity . . . this is very much in the territory of The Book Thief and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas with all the potential that such a comparison suggests

[a] complex graceful book

Exquisite

Exquisite debut novel

Like the characters in his debut novel, author Gavriel Savit has harnessed the power of language. He’s a talented wordsmith, wielding words and sentences with a precision that allows them to wriggle deep into this reader’s heart, leaving me both enchanted and brokenhearted.

One of those all ages and no age stories . . . told by a genuine wordsmith . . . And it's a story of generosity in the worst of times. Of friendship and loyalty and yes, of love despite all the horror. We won't forget how it felt to read it. Ever.

A beautiful and stunning read . . . It creeps slowly into your heart just like Morris Gleitzman's Once, and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas did.

Such an important, painful, beautiful, hopeful read

A harsh tale of innocence lost, yet touched with magic.

This is cleverly done and beautifully written tale of loss, hope, survival and trust

Savit spins a dark and heart-breaking tale of history and fable seen through the eyes of a child. A thought-provoking read, great for book clubs

A complex, gruelling trip through the midnight of the last century

The winner of the Man Booker Prize for The Finkler Question pulls off a neat trick in this almost perversely serious comic novel, creating a parallel world to Shakespeare's Venice in the wealthy, cultured Golden Triangle of Cheshire, and peopling it with parallel-ish characters...The author shows full power and ingenuity putting Strulovitch and Shylock in the same place and time.

Explores the meaning of Shakespeare's play, uses its enduring relevance to examine the contemporary world and challenges us to interrogate our prejudices...Energetic, authentic and biting.

That Shylock should thus materialise for a present-day Jewish protagonist, and become...a confidant, an exemplar...an advisor is a brilliant conceit...a powerful reimagining and reinvention.

Alive with humanity and fierce debate, the book offers a nice twist on that notorious pound of flesh.

Funny and dark by turns… A gripping tale of love, plastic surgery and that notorious pound of flesh… This warm, witty and brilliantly written book provides a challenging feast for the imagination.

A master of serious-minded comedy, Jacobson is one of the greats of his generation.

Brilliantly witty inventive.

A crackling dialectic on fatherhood, faith and what it means to be merciful… The echoes of Shakespeare’s story in Strulovitch’s are obvious…But the quips and the characters are pure Jacobson… It’s a treat.

Hilarious reimagining of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.

Offering witty twists to a play long experienced by many as a racial tragedy.

Affectionate retelling… At the heart of the novel is the profound question of whether obligation…should be tempered by mercy.

Even those familiar with that book will be surprised by the twists now composed by Jacobson, whose most idle words have purpose, as well as point… Clever mockery and racial self-depreciation give the novel its provocative brilliance… Jacobson pours the quality of mercy through a large strainer, but Shylock’s fortitude and unswerving tribal fidelity are offered as a kind of redemption, a way, if you like, of forgiving Shakespeare. And of sending you back to him, not only just to check

As characteristically ingenious, witty and dark as his musings on what it means to be Jewish.

It hooks you into a great debate.

I don’t think any other author writes as well about the experience of Jewishness and he manages to be serious but with that laconic humour.

An intelligent, funny and enjoyable novel.

For my favourite novel I’m choosing Shylock is my Name… It’s a dark, witty, provocative re-imagine of Shakespeare…seriously brilliant on many levels.

A marvellous meditation on the Cold War era and particularly the battles of conscience that besiege a man living under tyranny.

The tone is intimate and aphoristic, the paragraphs succinct.

A fascinating account of the life of Dimitri Shostakovich… Perceptive, symbolic… The Noise of Time is an essential read, and not only for musicians.

A finely-tuned masterpiece... Barnes' prose is supreme.

An intimate portrait of a public intellectual living in a totalitarian atmosphere… Immersive… The Noise of Time presents a compelling story in engaging and original prose.

Kaleidoscopic portrait… Barnes deftly constructs a life history... A masterfully told story of survival. *****

Beautifully composed.

Without a doubt, Barnes has succeeded the high expectations of the people who waited with bated breath for the release of The Noise of Time. In a work that feels both original and authentic, he encourages us to consider the importance of art, in whatever form, and the influence it can have on us all.

Barnes at his best...a poignant fictional recreation of the artistic agonies of the composer Shostakovich.

A very sensitive account of how art can be in conflict with naked political power.

A book I’d like to tuck myself away for a day to read. It’s short in length but by all accounts big on ideas and power.

His Dmitri Shostakovich is completely believable.

[A] brilliant study of the relationship between art and an oppressive regime… A compelling depiction of the country’s history and a richly imagined close-up of the artist.

A poignant and thoughtful portrait of the persecuted artist.

[It is] elegant.

Another Brilliant reinvention by Barnes.

My favourite book of this year is The Noise of Time.

His best for ages. It is gripping, outward-looking, generous with plot and atmosphere and far beyond the powers of McEwan, Amis, Ishiguro, Rushidie et al…. This book grabbed me by the nuts like nothing of his since Starting at the Sun.

[A] haunting novel on the agonies of Shostakovitch under Stalin and his successors… I recommended it to a friend who for years was one of the great reviewers at the Washington Post. His reply: “It’s an extraordinary book. It’s a book that makes me wish I were reviewing again.”

A mini-masterpiece.

An elegant portrait of Shostakovitch.

Written with Barnes’ characteristic low-key elegance, the book becomes a meditation on artistic integrity and its limits in a brutal regime

An impressive narrative of personal integrity.

As a portrait of the composer and his time this book is a complete success… The Noise of Time is also convincing in the details… A book in which a certain grim humour is never too far away.

[A] gem of a novel.

A compelling read that combines sharp insights, lyrical passages and dramatic tension.

Black humour and retrospective anguish prevail in Julian Barnes’s latest novel.

A beautifully told story, this is subtle and powerful.

This small novel is an elegant and unflinching account of a life lived under extreme pressure, during Stalin’s Great Terror. Julian Barnes fleshes out the life of the composer Shostakovich whose life is under threat. A powerful story, well-crafted and beautifully written about the humanity and torments of a creative soul… An informative, thought provoking read.

An immense emotional and intellectual punch.