The most dazzling depiction of the world of dance since Ballet Shoes'

Her prose is airbound at times - an exhilarating celebration of rhythm, sway and leap

Darkens from an absorbing mystery into a touching reckoning... Most striking is the delicacy and power with which Evans depicts emotional disturbance

The story is complex, clever, seamlessly achieved, its many currents blending in harmony, sometimes in conflict, to recreate that sense of randomness and accident that resemble the truth of life in the chancy present...The author's passion burns on the page, along with an almost tactile relish of the act of writing itself

A serious work of art with sentences like ribbons of silk winding around a skeleton of haunting imagery... Evans was born to write this novel

The Wonder embraces its theme with great heart. It's hard not to be seduced by its talented, difficult hero

Evans interweaves the strands of her three-generation narrative with an exhilarating sense of place and period

Sparkles with mood, music and the sway of street life

Like the movement of the dancers it describes, it feels always, captivatingly, 'meant'

Evans...writes with eye-catching fluidity, gracefully pirouetting between Notting Hill in the 1990s, and the Caribbean a decade earlier

Evans communicates the joy that comes out of, and the hard work that goes into, dance. She also has a keen eye and a neat way of communicating what she sees.

'[a] page turner...a series of profound, and mystifying, stories within a stoy that will confound and delight...Another confirmed bestseller

Eighteen years on from Generation X, Coupland still satirises pop culture better than anyone. This globe-spanning tale, set in the near future, is masterfully told and often hilarious

With this exceptional sequel to Generation X, Douglas Coupland may be one of the smartest, wittiest writers around . . . He is a terrifically good writer . . . Generation A is set in the near future . . . Bees have become extinct, but then five people are stung . . . It is the attempt to get to the bottom of this mystery that brings the five together on an Alaskan island where they are made to tell stories to one another. Coupland weaves common elements across these tales and into the main narrative: large themes . . . comic themes . . . existential themes . . . There is a compelling plot . . . Coupland scatters his smartly satirical observations throughout . . . This is a clever, brilliant book - and it's loads better than Generation X . . . funny and profound . . . Straight A . . . (Coupland) deserves top marks for his latest novel

Coupland is a master at creating eccentric, lonely characters and illuminating the mundaneness of dull lives in our celebrity-obsessed, technology-driven world . . . Ideas bounce of his writing like sparks off a live electrical wire

[A] tour-de-force myth of the near future . . . As ever, the writing is sharp and witty, displaying Coupland's keen eye for cultural trends and an awareness of the ever-expanding limits of technological advancement

Highly recommended. Like Murakami in thriller-trope mode. Go for it

Ambitious and weird . . . genuinely experimental

Unusual circumstances ensue in this latest read from the brilliant social commentator

Coupland is a smart, witty writer . . . A delight

Coupland juggles some fascinating ideas . . . Equal parts humor and revelation...An intelligent look at pop and digital culture

From the very first pages it jumps out: the language, the preoccupations, the political and technological references, the humour - they're all so now . . . Scintillating . . . I must admit I read the novel enviously. Oh, to have written something so clever, funny, heartfelt and original . . . The narration is layered, there are passages that are very funny, others that are wise, and throughout the language crackles with vitality . . . In the future, if people are curious about what it was like to live in our times, in the early 21st century, they will do well to read Douglas Coupland

Superbly entertaining stuff. Coupland's dialogue is witty and spiky and makes you laugh out loud . . . Coupland just can't resist making his characters as smart as he is, which is very smart indeed. He's one of the few writers who has really grasped what different times we live in . . . But Coupland's personality as a writer isn't just smart, it is also charming humane and fundamentally optimistic. A pure pleasure

A delightful Decameron of a book . . . rich, educative and even consoling

One of the most popular serious writers of our time

Terry Pratchett's use of language here is funny and exciting. This book delivers adventure, philosophy and satire. Pratchett has written of a very different world from his Discworld series. This is one of the cleverest novels I have read in years.

Nation is a modern tale of enlightenment that can be enjoyed by teenagers and aduls alike. An exceptional read, highly recommended.

An ebullient and entertaining novel of ideas.

Nation, published in 2008 (this year's award catchment runs from August 2008-September 2009), is an extraordinarily complicated tale about God, tradition and loss. Yet it is told with beautiful simplicity and rollicking readability.

Funny and profound, Nation is much more than an adventure story, pitting reason against religion and offering an alternative perspective on world history and culture.

As Pratchett says: "Thinking. This book contains some. Whether you try it at home is up to you." His wit is on every page; his world surpasses ours, his writing is weird and wonderful. No, weirdly wonderful. It is gripping but put the book down to ponder the thoughts inside to unearth a parallel universe. Terry Pratchett is worth more than his idiom; his teachings contain more philosophical thought than I would have ever thought possible.

Thought-provoking as well as fun, this is Pratchett at his most philosophical, with characters and situations sprung from ideas and games with language. And it celebrates the joy of the moment

Nation has profound, subtle and original things to say about the interplay between tradition and knowledge, faith and questioning. . . . It's funny, exciting, lighthearted and, like all the best comedy, very serious

Pratchett's immensely entertaining new young adult novel, manages to be both thought-provoking and sweet. . . . At times Nation reads like Philip Pullman but with less anger and more jokes, and a bit more ambiguity. . . . It's a wonderful story, by turns harrowing and triumphant

Terry Pratchett is an indisputable one-off . . . Nothing he writes is ever predictable - except that it will always be gloriously readable

An ebullient and entertaining novel of ideas

An enchanting novel . . . Terry Pratchett is one of the most interesting and critically under-rated novelists we have

In this first novel for young people set outside of Discworld, Pratchett again shows his humor and humanity. . . . The main characters are engaging and interesting, and are the perfect medium for the author's sly humor. Daphne is a close literary cousin of Tiffany Aching in her common sense and keen intelligence wedded to courage. A rich and thought-provoking read

A searching exploration of good and evil, fate and free will, both as broad and as deep as anything this brilliant and, happily, prolific author has produced so far

It's witty and wise, but it leaves its young readers enough room for a newly formed opinion or two as they think about its themes of love, loss, loyalty, courage, religion and nationhood

bursting with fun

A hilarious and clever book