One of the most dazzling luminaries of contemporary American fiction

A prose magician, Mr Wallace was capable of writing . . . about subjects from tennis to politics to lobsters, from the horrors of drug withdrawal to the small terrors of life aboard a luxury cruise ship, with humour and fervour and verve

A heady reminder of why we got hooked in the first place

Genuine objective journalism not only gets the facts right, it gets the meaning of events right. It is compelling not only today, but stands the test of time. It is validated not only by 'reliable sources' but by the unfolding of history. It is journalism that ten, twenty, fifty years after the fact still holds up a true and intelligent mirror to events

(Ligotti uses) restrained, lyrical prose and subtly disturbing images that Poe himself might well have admired

Orwell saw … that the act of falsifying reality is only secondarily a way of changing perceptions. It is, above all, a way of asserting power

[Orwell fought] the evils of the world and the weakness of his body to the day of his death, always striving, striving to tell the truth about what he saw and what he felt