One of my favourite writers

Cakes and Ale is a delightfully tart, meandering meditation on what it means to be an author, and its comments on the fickleness of literary celebrity are prescient and amusing. Maugham sees clearly that books are famous because of who tells you to like them, and that authors are 'good' because they are said to be.

A formidable talent, a formidable sum of talents...precision, tact, irony and total absence of pomposity

[A] witty Thirties novel… Great fun

In the tradition of British writing about India, this novel is a rich, unexpected variation, and a considerable addition

This is a brilliant evocation of the teeming back streets and bazaars of Delhi and the gulf between Indian life and western logic

With his constant switching of viewpoint, tense and emphasis, Parks, an extremely skilful storyteller, makes sure the novel's intensity never falters

An engaging story

This probably won't get within a bull's roar of the Booker shortlist. It should.The complexities of Dreams of Rivers and Seas are not the product of contrivance, but simply those of experience

A love story (or rather several love stories), an oblique and engrossing mystery, but above all a story about language and its limitations

Ambitious and compelling

In his latest novel, Parks demonstrates a seemingly effortless mastery of biochemistry...a fast paced thriller with sex and relationships at its heart

Entirely convincing. He is a highly skilful writer and this is an absorbing story

Parks competently handles the themes of secrecy and communication