Hotel Milano is one of Tim Parks' most engaging and satisfying books

Tim Parks, a long-time resident in Italy, is an accomplished writer of both fiction and non-fiction, and this deft and affecting short novel combines his skills

A compelling mix of emotional introspection and pressing drama

Excellent and quietly devastating... While recent pandemic novels such as Sarah Hall's Burntcoat and Sarah Moss's The Fell gave us the claustrophobia and forced intimacy of the pandemic, Hotel Milano comes closest to evoking what it was really like to watch the world be redrawn in real time

Parks writes with an appealing wry elegance, and his quirky, erudite narrator finally finds solace not so much in the grand themes of European culture as in a shredded balloon stuck in a tree or the yellow beak of a blackbird

Reimann's depiction of the complexities of nationhood are remarkably modern, and her portrayal of the sibling bond unnerving and tender... A striking portrait of what it feels like to be young, idealistic and crushed by the systems around you

Short, artful... Although Siblings is decidedly a realist novel, some moments feel more modernist [...] Indeed, one of the most intriguing subplots concerns her engagement with what it means to make realist art - a mission complicated by sexism in the party's ranks... Vivid

[Lucy] Jones's translation ably captures the frankness of Elisabeth's voice: the fast transitions, sensual visual imagery and careful ironic distance. At its best the prose evokes a kind of flickering street photography... Siblings is too good a novel to be read merely for the way in which it reflects on the limited political horizons of our era; but if you are looking to imagine your way beyond them, it gestures to a picture of a future that never was

This vivid and intriguing novel, published in 1963, is a largely autobiographical story by an author who had a short, eventful life, marrying four times and declaring her intent to live "30 wild years instead of 70 well-behaved ones"... Siblings is given new life in this translation by Lucy Jones

Like a book from a lost civilisation... Siblings is a generational book. Like Gen X-ers or Gen Z-ers, Reimann looked about her to see that the markers of life and society had been put in place by people alien to her... An almost cool, static, geometrical spider's web of a book

She made our hearts beat. She showed women both in the east and the west how to live. In short she was one of the coolest chicks in town

A fascinating and powerful epic

A towering feat of reporting that paints, layer by layer, an extraordinary portrait of a child, a family, a city, and the nation that produced them. From start to finish, she sustains an insatiably curious and deeply empathetic focus on worlds that so many people work hard, if mostly unconsciously, to never really see.

A wonderful and important book.

Invisible Child is a tour de force of immersive reporting and a meticulous and unflinching depiction of intergenerational American poverty... Elliott exposes the granular texture of daily life with deep empathy, the punishing sameness of material want, and in the process paints a sweeping portrait of contemporary American life.

Both a moving portrait and a devastating critique of America's enduring colour divide

Swiftly paced, unfussily structured, and in fluent and spirited prose, it racks the history of a magical city created by a demi-goddess.

An epic adventure-filled saga, you'll be intoxicated by its magic.

A wonderfully entertaining literary hybrid, an intimate epic, a serious comedy of manners.

A vigorous, enjoyable epic that hymns the enduring might of narrative over more fleeting forces.

This latest addition to his great body of work deserves nothing but celebration and gratitude.

A joyous masterpiece that will remind the world that, aside from being a free speech hero, he is one of the planet's greatest writers.

There is a welcome levity to his prose here as he riffs on myth-making, culture clashes or the nature of storytelling itself.

Victory City has the tone of mischief Rushdie is always able to channel into his bright, fluid storytelling. Amid all the courtly intrigue and fantastic realism woven through the extensive cast of characters, fleeting dashes of wicked humour sit up and pierce the tale delectably. Rushdie's sharp, camouflaged satire speaks to everything, from religious extremism to greed to patriarchal misogyny. It all just seems to unspool from him without effort.

The best thing Salman Rushdie has written in years... One of the richest and most exuberant books he has given us.

Rushdie's creation is vivid, compelling, and entirely his own.

Salman Rushdie is a genius and I wish he could read me a story - or a chapter of his book - every night before bed. The scale and scope of his intellect and his imagination is googolplex.

It does not resemble any other novel I could name. A major accomplishment by one of our greatest living writers.

No one, and I mean no one, can bring an entire world to life... like Salman Rushdie.

Mesmerising and soul-stirring. Victory City is an epic tribute to the power of words as well as the resilience of women. Rushdie is without a peer in proving that literature soars above tyranny and bigotry, and imagination roars louder than censorship

This is Salman Rushdie at his most virtuosic.

It will show you the adult world in a whole new light. Only a master storyteller can do that.

A storyteller who reminds that death may take away a lot of things, but never the power of our words.

A capacious and sweeping telling in which writing about the past is a way of also staring dead on at the present.

Victory City stands out as one of the year's literary highlights... that feels like an instant classic.

Rushdie is an assured storyteller at the height of his powers, revealing once again how important India is as a fount of his imagination.

Victory City is one of Rushdie's very best novels. It is also a luminous, italicised, vibrant reminder of the possibilities of free expression and of the untrammelled imagination. In this instance, the medium is indeed the message.

Victory City can, in many ways, be read as an entertaining jaunt through Indian history, though it is history through the kaleidoscopic and sweeping lens of a fairy tale... this brilliantly magical tale.

This sweeping, intricately crafted fairy tale is underscored by very human characters and Rushdie's signature wit.

A grand entertainment, in a tale with many strands, by an ascended master of modern legends.

Rushdie's magical style unfurls wonders.

Rushdie's Victory City is another fabulous novel set in his native India... He's a master who never forgets that the main goal of a storyteller is to entertain rather than educate or pontificate.

Rushdie is, above all else...one of the most powerful defenders of story we have... Victory City is a victory for Rushdie - and for every reader who enters its gates.

Rushdie succeeds in creating a kind of incantatory prose that befits the fabulist nature of the story... he can enchant readers like few other writers.

This is a man at his full-strength, high-tar best - with his deeply humane worldview, his brilliance at set-pieces and, above all, the thrilling wildness of his imagination on irresistible display.

With its carousel of shifting politics and history, Victory City is Rushdie's most textured and triumphant wonder tale yet.

Utterly enchanting.

Rushdie's return to magic, myth, and India's ancient stories is dazzling. With mercurial prose and vivid renderings, Rushdie never loses us in Victory City's convolutions, but instead builds our trust to travail the many grand events of Pampa's imagined empire.

A rich, dramatic saga... The many moments of comedy...show Salman Rushdie's storytelling skills and his endearing sense of playfulness... the main feeling the reader gets is of a storyteller enjoying himself.

Rushdie is an expert at mixology; he's the DJ Shadow of text with references and allusions to high and low culture from Finnegans Wake to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon... a well-told tale that gets bums on seats.

There's a magical thread of storytelling running through the veins of each character we meet in this book... a joy to read.

A work of great imagination... In Victory City the power of the written word and of the storyteller remain triumphant.

Rushdie’s sheer love of fiction is irrepressible.

A wonderfully entertaining literary hybrid

Victory City is Salman Rushdie at his imaginative best… sweeping the reader on a journey that feels epic in a mere 320 pages

From start to finish, the reader or listener can only be impressed by the literary flair of Rushdie's compelling storytelling... Victory City is a joy to listen to.