A tragedy backlit by beauty

For Fitzgerald desolation is a precondition of the lyrical. Hence the most distinctive impression of Tender: a beautiful novel about failure

It is one of those books that you read and feel a shift...the story is told so poetically and eloquently. It is one of those books that you read and think: if I could only remember that sentence - it is so beautiful

No one has written more elegiacally about America... Fitzgerald, like his revered Keats, was a compulsive nostalgic, locating happiness in the search for sensation rather than in its realisation; in the dream of desire, not in its fulfilment

In just a snatch of dialogue or a few lines of description, Fitzgerald can evoke the happy, troubled and perilous balance of a group of friends... He has an acute eye and ear for the nuances of character... an exquisitely crafted piece of fiction

Highly enjoyable

Brilliant... An imaginative, colourful page-turner

Her writing is as wonderful as ever ... You won't be able to tear yourself away

A compelling blend of murder, lies and revenge. A novel full of intrigue and suspense

Addictive first novel...this slangy, plosive-packed prose is what makes the book a success...an expert manipulation of syntax keeps things zingy...it is a plus point that the dystopia bears no allegorical weight, thriving purely as an imaginary realm to be taken at face value

This is a darkly funny tale of gangland warfare in Ireland that reads like a fast-paced film

It's hilarious and visceral

The plot is engrossing, with strong bones, yet sinuous and surprising... Barry plays with words with a manic joy and its this use of language that draws the reader in

He makes a bold statement, not only about his considerable talent but also his plot to upend the realm of modern Irish literature with a work of such singular scope and voice that it is bound to be the talk of book circles this year and possibly beyond

vVolent and bleak and yet somehow full of romance, the driving story and powerful use of language make for a heady experience

Rampaging

Knocked me out, big time... The characters are demented but also weirdly familiar; an amazing book altogether

Humour, moxie and a real love of the lingo... A riot of music, gang warfare and a hilarious patois

Bohane is a post-apocalyptic, low-tech, dog-eat-dog Irish city - and it's mesmerising. The characters' coarse language is vividly poetic, and there's a peculiar optimism about their lives that comes of living in an atmosphere of heart-stopping brutishness. A unique and fascinating book

The prose flows easily, underpinned with a wry humour that counters the harsh, modern realism

A Man of Parts has the lovely, loquacious qualities that typify eccentric wonders such as The War of the Worlds and The History of Mr Polly. David Lodge reminds us that Wells, an imperfect man, is still a worthy witness to his own world and to those worlds that may yet to come.

Lodge understands the Edwardian literary and political scene extremely well, and traces Wells's entanglements with the louche world of Fabians and free lovers with real intimacy

As protean, elusive but compelling as it's hero, David Lodge's bio-novel about HG Wells breaks all the rules but still grips the reader - like Wells himself

A wry, racy and absorbing biographical novel

Lodge knows how to tease the inner man out from behind the historical figure, subjecting Wells to probing interviews throughout the book in which his deeper beliefs and contradictions are laid bare

This fictionalised version of HG Wells dramatises the author's life, which was full of politics, writing and women

David Lodge's HG Wells was both a visionary and a chancer; as arrogant as he was insecure; with as many noble goals as base instincts; a mass of very human contradictions; as Lodge has it, a man of parts