What's the best thing about judging the Forward prizes? Free books? Reassessing a poet you hadn't paid enough attention to? Those are good, but the best might be the poems, and odd lines, that stick in your head. They may be from books that didn't even make the shortlist, but they've still made a mark – Dannie Abse's line "Men become mortal when their fathers die" from his collection Speak, Old Parrot, isn't going to leave me any time soon.

The phenomenal Dr Abse still prescribes verbal wit and human warmth, radiant memory and blazing perception, as remedies against a time of life when "all pavements slope uphill". This veteran flyer can still sing and swoop.

Dannie Abse's line "Men become mortal when their fathers die" from his collection Speak, Old Parrot, isn't going to leave me any time soon.

It’s a book packed with both feeling and swagger, a tumbling energy that belies the closing farewell.

There is much that could be said about this inspiring collection, and all of it positive. It should be bought, read and re-read.

Abse is still writing – and reading – at his mesmerizing best

Speak, Old Parrot shows that if art and humour will both be overtaken by death, they refuse to yield ground without a struggle. What will survive the endless nothingness is wit and love.

A masterful stylist and a wise, often hilarious observer of human nature and his times, Anthony Powell is an under-appreciated literary gem. The pleasures and dramas of the "Dance" continue to illuminate daily life.

He has wit, style, and panache, in a world where those qualities are in permanently short supply

[A] comic masterpiece

Comic, satisfying, thought-provoking, addictive

It's his supreme skill in mastering a lengthily interwoven chronicle, the evolution of such a range and variety of pin-point characters, the wit and the cultural ambition that give the novel a unique place in English Literature.

Jade does what uncounted sexual assault survivors have dreamed of doing - she takes matters into her own hands. What ensues is part [...] revenge fantasy, part diabolically well-planned manipulation, and it's all done in lyrical prose that feels dreamy and so much like Shakespeare. A gorgeous, scorchingly emotional novel

This revenge fantasy told from the point of view of a rape survivor will shock and awe.

THIS BOOK WILL BE YOUR NEXT OBSESSION. Welcome to the Hazel Wood, where bad luck is a living thing, princesses are doomed, and every page contains a wondrously terrible adventure - it's not safe inside these pages, but once you enter, you may never want to leave.

Katz's debut is one that will have readers gripped from the very first words until the last - and a book that will stay with you for a long while afterwards.

[A] smart debut, both compelling and disturbing, delivered with the kind of confidence that makes me keen to see what Katz will come up with next.

[G]ripping debut … Here’s a page-turner you’ll devour before the week is out

A razor sharp psychological deconstruction of the motivations, regrets and secrets behind a picture-perfect façade.

White-knuckle ride

I really wanted to just press the book into anyone’s hands and say ‘please read this’! [...] An important read

Readers hungry for an in-depth study of a man searching for control, power and ownership will find satisfaction in A Good Man. But caveat emptor - this story inevitably hurtles at the end towards a chilling finale

This stellar debut from Ani Katz had us gripped from the beginning.