This thoughtful and beautifully written novel… We cannot fail to be moved

Has all the lyric intensity we have come to associate with Scandinavian films…It is full of spirit, observation, insight, sadness, struggle, pain and, inevitably, of hope

Sensitive and vivid

The landscape of pain has never been defined more graphically… A disturbing, moving and thought-provoking novel that stays in the mind long after it is read

It is brilliant: an evocative book of exquisite beauty and exceptional wisdom… Hope is the theme of the novel, and it is explored sensitively, intelligently and philosophically by an author who knows the impact of simple, precise language… Art can change the way we see the world and Gustafsson is a fine, fine artist

A beautiful work, lyrical and bleak, resonant and terse

Trains a high-powered microscope on modern life… Szalay might have found in All that Man Is the perfect vehicle for his particular talent… It brings a sensory richness to the bleak and the drab… A showcase for Szalays virtuosic range… Each character is in crisis...yet Szalay grants each a lyrical moment of sensory immersion in the world. It is the resonance of these moments of fleeting transcendence that form the structure of this strange and lucid novel.

All That Man Is is a triumph… By the fourth chapter the book as a whole has become gripping… Szalay has harnessed the natural energy of time, and the result is a 100-megawatt novel: intelligent, intricate, so very well made. The form perfectly fitting the content. When I reached the end, I turned straight back to the start to begin again.

[Szalay is] capable of conjuring tenderness from any situation… Szalay keeps the writing so judgment-free and is so honest about the unpredictability of desire… [Readers] will find a great deal to enjoy in these pages, and further evidence that Szalay…is one of the best fortysomething writers we have.

Szalay exposes the vulnerability that belies young men’s sexual bravado… Szalay takes us inside distinctive worlds.

Szalay’s writing is always sensitive, often funny and brilliantly observed… This is a very poignant piece of writing… All That Man Is does have the feel of a novel: in its evenness of tone, its thematic coherence, its driving sense of purpose… This is a quietly dazzling book by a writer who thoroughly deserves his growing reputation.

He is one of those rare writers with skill in all the disciplines that first-rate fiction requires. The most immediate pleasure is his literary intelligence… Szalay’s writing is virtuosic… These are the best short stories I’ve read for ages.

Here is a newish, youngish…contemporary British novelist worth catching up on and following… Luxuriant and Hobbesian… Szalay is an offended satirist with a remarkable verbal imagination… Szalay’s prose with its ruthlessly banal dialogue, arm-twisting present tense, shard-like fragments…irresistibly brilliant epithet or startlingly quotable phrase, lets nothing go to waste.

He exposes with clear-sighted precision the multiple and (largely) disastrous failings of his characters… Szalay is too sharp by far to overstate the inevitable impact of his fellow man's actions… He exposes the problem in such style and with such rigour.

He writes clean, unshowy sentences that move easily between the diction of casual speech and a more distanced tone. And he’s able to hold a reader even when there isn’t much going on, relying on assured storytelling rather than busy plotting. All this means that the new book goes down smoothly. It’s also a bit of a tour de force when it comes to social and geographical reach… It’s part of Szalay’s appeal that he’s more interested in getting at the texture of experience than he is in stuffing it into elegant packaging.

He goes to town on nine specimens of the male gender, only surfacing to spit out the bones… The predicaments of the various tormented men come together to produce a rich exploration of male vulnerability… With All That Man Is, Szalay] he emerges as a writer with a voice unlike any other.

Szalay’s audacious new novel… A superb meditation on ageing.

The book is compelling, both for its fine-grained rendering of what one character calls “the texture of existence” and for its intricate patterning of events… His writing pulls you completely into their world. This is a book that I was impatient to return to and regretted finishing

A 100-megawatt book.

[A] boldly sad-funny and clear-eyed new novel.

Szalay’s handling of this material is sensitive, generous and often accomplished. He is adept at evoking the metaphysical stirrings that accompany shifts in light, time, weather… He is capable of sharp, fresh and affecting perceptions… [All That Man Is] offers enriching moments of immersion in the texture of existence.

A wonderfully pan-European collection of stories… All are bleakly funny and brilliantly drawn.

An impressive investigation of masculinity and – with excellent timing – Europe.

Szalay is on the cusp of widespread recognition and acclaim, but it could take the Booker to really tip him in. Szalay’s win would also be a symbolic victory for that generation of writers that seemed to usher in the new millennium by their will and words alone. To put it bluntly, this is the sort of coup that could change the guard of the British literary establishment.

[A] wryly funny work.

A composite portrait of modern masculinity and the foibles of contemporary Europe.

This book is well written, the language is clear and evocative of mood and movement, the observations offered are both simple and profound, the overall effect is a sophisticated commentary on life.

If you haven’t read David Szalay before, these finely crafted, bite size narratives seem like a good place to start.

[It is] scabrous, intelligent and hugely engaging.

Szalay got some of the critical recognition his formidable talent deserves for All That Man Is

[It is] glorious.

A revelation… Not only of a brilliantly inventive and observant writer…but of new possibilities for the novel as a form… I can’t stop thinking about it.

Szalay brilliantly avoids approximation by precisely detailing the inner and outer worlds of his nine very different characters.. [It is] really worth your time – both first and second time through.

A stylish exploration of masculinity that deserved its place on the Booker shortlist.

I’m still struck by just how natural Szalay’s vernacular English voices sound in the mouths of his listless French teenagers, Hungarian bodyguards and cynical Danish journalists.

Szalay’s astute and insightful book focuses on nine different men, each at a tricky stage of life… This is a deft, amusing and often disturbing vision of the plight of the modern European male.

A collection of funny, moving, sometimes desperately sad stories

Deservedly shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize… A compelling masterpiece.

Wonderfully compelling stuff.

A witty deconstruction of modern masculinity.

All That Man Ishas a rather surprising tenderness. A grand project neatly realised.

Szalay paints a bleak yet fascinating picture of European man today.

Beautiful, curious and compelling.

Shortlisted for last year’s Booker, these nine stories about very different men are replete with richly observed humanity, caught on the page as if in the midst of lives that extend backwards and forwards beyond the time we spend with them. Szalay’s writing is virtuosic, whether external realities or psychology… These are the best shirt stories I’ve read for ages.

It is beautifully written, with characters both repulsive and charming in equal measure