It sparkles with Astley's wry wit

During times of momentous change, men of letters are driven to produce works that fictionalise the state of the nation, linking individuals with historic events. The 19th century gave us Thackeray's Vanity Fair, Dickens's Our Mutual Friend and Trollope's The Way We Live Now; the 21st has given us Sebastian Faulks's A Week in December

Often edgily satirical, sometimes deeply affecting, A Week in December grasps its headline motifs with the strong and supple hands of a master

Hilarious... The satire is so vicious that at times it's like reading a Tom Sharpe novel

This vast novel, well-plotted and gripping throughout, is the first that Sebastian Faulks has set in our time...the ambition and scope of the book are to be applauded. The conclusion is suitably nail-biting and, pleasingly, love triumphs. Sebastian Faulks has probably got another best-seller on his hands

A zeitgeisty novel about the effects of greed, celebrity, the electronic age and the fragmentation of urban life. It's gripping stuff...sweeping and satirical, A Week in December is a thrilling state-of-the-nation novel

The novel is cleverly plotted and eminently readable

Faulks never writes a hackneyed or lazy sentence, polishing each with care

Page-turning portrait of noughties' London

One can't mistake Faulk's ambition, and his take on the contemporary life is never less than readable

This intriguing book, shaped by modern manners and foibles as much as actions and outcomes, takes the reader on a whistle-stop tour of society

The author cleverly brings together the two things that are troubling the nation most - the collapse of the financial system and the threat of terrorism. The book is compelling

Faulks's most vivid character is the odious John Veals, a hedge-fund manager, who relishes all the money that he makes and the power that he quietly exerts... Veals is brilliantly insidious... A thoughtful page-turner... The handsome sunset is heavily, and rightly, weighed down by dark clouds

It would be a hard heart indeed that remained unmoved . . . the tender feelings that Noble engenders in her readers are to be cherished

Tissues are essential. You'll ricochet between delicately watering eyes at the romance of it all and howling sobs at the unbearable tenderness

An ambitious conflation of fact and fiction

Samantha Hunt's fantasy comes closer than any biography to solving the riddle of Tesla's commercial and personal failings ... The Invention of Everything Else is perfect for nights spent in the wrong hotel, once your travel plans have, as usual, gone subtly awry

a fascinating blend of fact, fiction, history and dare I say, science fiction surrounding the weird and wonderful life of Nikola Tesla the acknowledged father of radio and AC electricity.

her portrait of Tesla buzzes with vitality

This unusual novel skilfully interweaves the story of the eccentric inventor of radio and AC electricity with that of Louisa ... a compelling novel.

A sophisticated pastiche of science fiction, fantasy, melodrama, and historical anecdote....It all adds up to a precocious math of human marvel