Anita Desai is one of the greats of the modern short story ... The whole collection breathes old-style quality

To compare Anita Desai's fiction with that of Chekhov or the short stories of Tolstoy is not extravagant; it is entirely warranted

All her stories are full of a confidence in human nature that is a rarity and a pleasure to encounter

Anita Desai is one of the most brilliant and subtle writers ever to have described the meeting of eastern and western culture

Boyd deals with heavy themes with the lightest touch. We're lucky to have him writing for us

Boyd is a gifted and intelligent story-teller

Boyd is as good as ever at capturing time and place, and at blurring the line between fact and fiction. A highly enjoyable read

The short story that has sent tongues wagging and keyboards tapping since it was published... #CatPerson has cast light on an oft-experienced but rarely discussed form of sexual consent: when yes means no.

Trending on Twitter, choking Facebook newsfeeds, and whizzing through the ether by email… Cat Person has been a phenomenal success... It’s a game-changer.

Cat Person is both brilliant and disarming in its exploration of the artifice of gender.

Cat Person: the short story that launched a thousand theories.

Women have embraced the story, crediting Roupenian for her brave depiction of the slippery line between desire and loathing.

By now you have either read or heard a friend of yours talk at great length about Cat Person.

A fictional short story published in a magazine is being shared widely online as social media users discuss how much it relates to modern day dating.

After Cat Person... went viral over the weekend, it was praised for putting into words the thoughts and feelings many young women have had while navigating the world of dating, and the world in general.

[Cat Person] launched an armada of thinkpieces... At 36, Roupenian is young and just starting out... The fate of previous zeitgeist-catching New Yorker stories suggests her future is bright.

For women, the story brilliantly articulates the minefield which is dating.

Cat Person captured and explained the low-level dread that often accompanies romance for women... It has women saying, in other words, “Yeah, us too.”

The viral New Yorker short story that last year opened the floodgates to a vital discussion about modern dating, bad sex and consent… Cat Person catapulted [Kristen Roupenian] to fame.

Genius... infamous.

Rarely does a new writer define a moment common to all so well… It’s a fascinating read.

These elegant stories are poignant and inventive

It’s easy to forget… what a masterful writer he is... The interplay of sadness and heartache with moments of humour and surrealness are what make him the writer he is… Subtle, playful and nuanced. It is a subversive, almost existential look at relationships between men and women, one that plays with and even does away with the toxic masculinity of Hemingway’s work

This scrutiny of both misogyny and the loss of male virility is delicately handled by Murakami, who manages to bring just enough of the surreal into the story without drawing too much attention to itself or indeed what it is he is trying to do. This is the magic of Murakami… Murakami’s prose throughout is, unsurprisingly, beautiful. He writes with his signature stripped down sparsity that nonetheless never loses warmth of becomes too conspicuous. His dialogue is natural and believable and he has truly mastered the ability to write simply about complex and nuanced themes

I was blown away by the sense of loneliness, longing and yearning in each story

Marked by the same dry humour that has defined his entire body of work, in this collection Murakami has crafted another contemporary classic.

A book of piercing stories. Murakami writes in a calm, clear way, and suddenly you’re very moved

Each story is centred around the concept of longing or loneliness, and all told with Murakami's unique and illuminating style. One for long-serving fans and newcomers alike

[A] masterclass in writing about the edges of everyday life. This collection of short stories that all link to the Sunshine State captures loneliness, alienation, abandonment and inner resourcefulness in the most creative of tales.

Fantastical tales ... You'll be swept up in a wild hurricane of a ride with this lyrical stories of fury and love, loss and hope.

Each story is perfectly formed, exquisite, often troubling but there is something so brilliantly humane about her work.

The five darkly comic stories that comprise The Largesse of the Sea Maiden are befitting final testaments to [Johnson’s] wild originality... His sentences, like his plots, are full of gorgeous little shocks.