One of the most shocking Gothic novels

What distinguishes The Monk from a whole raft of lesser imitations is the quality of the storytelling... judicious use of humour...great visual immediacy. Though predating the invention of cinema by a century, The Monk contains many scenes which are structured like a film script... a remarkable understanding of human psychology. The relationship between sex, violence, power and celebrity is explored in a way that strikes definite chords. Ambrosio is an intellectual with the charisma of a rock idol who has risen to the top by the suppression of his passions and, when they are released, they seethe with an intensity which burns off the page

Carver's poetry is non-metrical, free as prose... It works well and reads beautifully

It is an extraordinary book, part fairytale or romance, part realistic study of French provincial life, sometimes grim, in the last years of the 19th century; and some of its fascination comes from this curiously hybrid quality. It is both naive and knowing. It has the dewy freshness of a first novel, but it is also admirably constructed

Intense, perfectly capturing that interval between childhood and the adult world

A little masterpiece...irresistible

After 150 years still have the power to fascinate readers

Beautifully written and this re-designed cover is stunning

I'm a huge fan. Wodehouse writes proper jokes.

To dive into a Wodehouse novel is to swim in some of the most elegantly turned phrases in the English language.

One jaw-droppingly powerful, courageous and original fiction debut...As a 10th work of fiction this would be impressive; as a debut, it is remarkable

Hands down the best fictional debut we have read this year

For the imagery alone and for the sentences, the book would be a treasure, but the story it tells - the story of the suicide of the author's father - has an immediacy and sharpness made all the more special by the tone of distance in the narrative and the beauty of the writing

David Vann's Legend of a Suicide is brave, fantastically well written, and completely defies categorisation

From the shores of Vann's Alaska one can see the Russia of Turgenev's Fathers and Sons ... 'A father, after all,' Vann writes, 'is a lot for a thing to be.' A son is also a lot for a thing to be; so is an artist. With Legend of a Suicide David Vann proves himself a fine example of both

...a gripping fantasy thriller that will please all the older Harry Potter fans out there

Jonathan Littell veers between brilliance and bathos...

Grotesque, dismaying, chilling in its focus on the fine detail of barbarism, this epic of evil is also addictively readable

Compelling... utterly engaging... for anyone whose interest in his subjects is great to enough to bear their unflinching portrayal The Kindly Ones is an essential novel

It's an amazing picture of evil, wonderfully written (and very well translated from the original French by Charlotte Mandell), and left me feeling as though I had supped with the damned