This selection of Orwell’s journalism is a ceaseless delight… There is a treat on almost every page

Orwell’s luminous gift was for seeing things, for noticing what others missed, took for granted or simply found uninteresting, for discovering meaning and wonder in the familiarity of the everyday... Nothing escaped or seemed beneath his notice, which was what made him such a good reporter... [Seeing Things As They Are] is intended to be a collection first and foremost of his journalism, with preference given to lesser-known pieces and reviews as well as some of the poems he wrote. It is full of interest and curiosities

Peter Davison gives us a feast of [Orwell's] shorter writings, showing how from such hesitant beginnings he evolved into the writer of enduring importance we know, committed to decency, equality and political honesty, who could nevertheless wax lyrical over the first signs of spring or an imaginary English pub

Davison, now in his late 80s, has grown grey in the service of Orwell Studies, but Seeing Things As They Are is one of his best efforts yet – possibly the best of all, for it succeeds in demonstrating quite how important hackwork was to Orwell’s sense of his professional identity... At the same time, Seeing Things As They Are is full of dry runs, and the first stirrings of ideas that would be treated at greater length elsewhere

Seeing Things is packed with delights

This collection… comes from one who sets the standards by which all journalists should judge themselves and find room for improvement

Suffused with Ackroyd’s intelligence and learning

Ackroyd’s pen portraits of the intersecting worlds of academia, literary London and Fleet Street are written with relish

An amalgam of social satire and noirish thriller...vintage Ackroyd

Consistently intriguing

Superb... [Ackroyd] makes the familiar deliciously mysterious

In a slender novel, London's great fictional mapper Peter Ackroyd has woven together a rich spread of tales of the city

Ackroyd writes about the capital, from Camden to Chelsea, like no-one else and he captures the sense of the sixties perfectly, with high-society and low-life London so dangerously close to each other. Full of twists and turns, this is Ackroyd's most exciting novel to date

A classic Ackroyd tale that will not fail to please

Exciting and fast moving as the story is, it also tugs at your heartstrings and reminds the reader that there are many young people for whom this way of life is reality. Unmissable!

This is a powerful and gripping story that takes us into some painful places, but makes us believe that transformation is possible - that the vulnerable and weak can sometimes triumph against a whole system. I would very highly recommend it

Often funny, more often very moving

While readers will delight in the excitement and adventure of this story, they will also learn about the poverty and difficulties faced by many children throughout the world and about the consequences of corruption in government

The chase leads them throughout the city, exposing the great disparity between the "haves" and the "have nots," and the huge injustice this represents. They face moral dilemmas throughout and, ultimately, make good decisions. Their intelligence and characters make the condition in which they live seem even more unfair

An exciting read full of suspense. This will appeal to boys and to girls, and could act as a stimulus to classroom discussion of poverty, child workers, recycling in third world countries and the misuse of economic and political power

The thrilling pace of the narrative does not let up from start to finish. Lustrum is an utterly engrossing, suspense-filled read

Dripping in detail it brings ancient Rome to vivid life, yet the political intrigue has echoes in today's ruling classes. And while the pace gallops along, the action is reined in just enough to crank the tension up. *****

Conspiracy, betrayal and political upheaval are the keys that turn this brilliantly researched page-turner

For a page turner...I would go for Lustrum (Hutchinson, £18.99) the second volume of Robert Harris's semi-fictional trilogy on the life of the Roman politician Cicero. The oldest stories really are often the best!

Harris is one of the consummate storytellers of the age, a master of narrative who - whatever genre he tackles - delivers books that are definitions of the word compulsive. In Lustrum, we have the mechanics of the thriller applied to ancient Rome, with immensely powerful results

A fine achievement: a hefty, politically serious thriller that effortlessly reanimates the dusty quarrels of Roman government while casting ironic and instructive sidelight on those of our own

Supreme story-telling

Deeply satisfying, impeccably researched and spectacularly topical ... a thriller to die for ... Harris brilliantly evokes Rome on the edge of political chaos through the eyes of Cicero's slave Tiro, who acts as his mater's secretary ... The pace never falters, and the politics are sharply relevant for today

Harris communicates such a strong sense of Imperial Rome - the book is awesomely well-informed about the minutiae of everyday life

Lustrum... was a fascinating world, a world of subtle political machinations and fine oratory and nuanced debate, and complex legislation, and intrigue, and an extremely absorbing one

It is a tribute to Harris's deftness of touch that this book feels so fresh ... he has a lovely dry, debunking style ... Harris writes about the life of politics with an insight rare among historical novelists ... It is as a pure thriller ... wry, clever, thoughtful, with a terrific sense of timing and eye for character

Lustrum offers a great insight into the psychology of political calculation. The story of Cicero's fall from power to the point where even sworn allies close their doors on him offers little consolation over the next few months for our own leader

What a storm it is. The five year period covered by the novel, the 'lustrum' of its title, has some claim to be the most thrilling in the entire span of classical history ... Remorseless it may be; but it is also, as one would expect of Harris, thrillingly paced and narrated. The excitements of a classic thriller, however, are almost the least of the novel's virtues: virtues which derive in large part, from Cicero himself. What grips most about Lustrum is the seriousness with which the political issues at stake are taken, and the vividness of the characterisation: both of which, in large part, reflect the closeness of Harris's reading of his hero's speeches and correspondence

Robert Harris brings the cut-throat republic to life... He understands politics and how to dramatise them.

Offers great insight into the psychology of political calculation

[Lustrum] stands on its own merits as a thoroughly engaging historical novel. Republican Rome, with all its grandeur and corruption, has rarely been made as vivid as it appears in Harris's book. The allure of power and the perils that attend it have seldom been so brilliantly anatomised in a thriller.

Harris never makes his comparisons between Rome and modern Britain explicit, but they are certainly there. And that's the principal charm of his ancient thrillers - their up-to-dateness.

Intrigue and excitement all the way, brilliantly read by Oliver Ford Davies.