A scintillating mix of sci-fi adventure and allegory

In 1963, at the most glacial moment of the Cold War, Frenchman Pierre Boulle wrote a novel called Planet Of The Apes - a drastic warning about where mankind's apparent desire to destroy itself might lead

Boulle called on his own experiences as a prisoner of war in South-east Asia during the Second World War, using the relationship between man and apes as a metaphor for the treatment handed out to prisoners by brutish Japanese guards

It's like a good myth or fairy-tale that stays with you... Part of the strength of this material is its disruptive, questioning nature. Who came first? Where are we going?

The subtext is strongly anti-slavery, anti-racist and anti-war

Her prose is rich, flawless, intricate, audacious and utterly beautiful

He is a master of the comedy of social awkwardness... Jacobson is playing a sophisticated literary game, in this most literate of novels

Mesmerising...also as delightfully funny a novel as one would expect from Jacobson, who revels in language and in the perverse spell it can cast... The Act of Love is spellbinding, not just in its characterisation, or in its simplicity of plot, in the flirtatiousness with which Jacobson courts language, or the stylish sardonic humour that seems to come so easily, but in its entirety

The Act of Love, like Jacobson's other work, contains a rich vein of humour...Intelligent and erudite, Felix is a fascinating character

Jacobson's page-turning account of sexual obsession is replete with erudite flourishes and sophisticated insight

One of the author's most affecting, honest and brilliant works. It is a searingly well written piece by a ridiculously underrated novelist

Entertaining... Jacobson's prose is incisive and off-kilter, abrasive and often hilarious

Felix Quinn, the narrator of the book...explains it beautifully - and this is a very good novel... Feeling unsafe makes him feel alive. And loss, of course, is the wellspring of good storytelling

The Act of Love is an ambitious and at times extremely uncomfortable novel

It is an almost frighteningly brilliant achievement. Why did the Booker judges not recognise it?

This is a very good novel

Jacobson's 10th novel is a moving, thought-provoking and darkly witty story of desire and love