Selby's place is in the front rank of American novelists ... to understand his work is to understand the anguish of America.

A major author of a stature with William Burroughs and Joseph Heller

Good-hearted and brutal at the same time, The Milkman in the Night is a complex, unsettling mixture of bleakness and warmth

Kurkov is hugely talented

This book is a joyride... Kurkov has a rollercoaster of fun between zig and zag. He defies the reader not to join him

Set in post-Orange Revolution Kiev, Kurkov's narrative is a meditation on the uneasy dreams of a troubled cultural psyche

Blackly surreal... Kurkov has an artisan's eye for quirky detail but dispatches it with terse Eastern pessimism. Here, he weaves a low-key epic in which a series of characters - a single mother, a sniffer-dog handler, a security guard, a politician, a man having an affair in his sleep, a widow, two cats and a plastinated corpse - become embroiled in a bizarre conspiracy involving a drug that sharpens people's sense of justice and a very dodgy milking operation. It sounds fanciful but Kurkov never gets too caught up in this world, describing it with a pragmatic economy and powerful clarity

Kurkov's imagination kicks into high gear and turns Kiev into an absurdist playground. The result is a whimsical, skewed vision which can be, by turns, delightful and discomforting

Kurkov entices us along all the fault-lines of his bizarre world, where a young man sleepwalks through a double life and a widow notices her embalmed husband has fresh dirt on his unworn shoes

Drugs, milk and a brace of cats pop up in a murky epic from Ukraine's master of the surreal conspiracy thriller

The separate storylines... twine into a bizarre quasi-murder mystery, featuring anti-fear medicine, human milk used as youth serum, corpse embalming, a cat that comes back from the dead and shady government practices. Ukranian author Andrey Kurkov's direct, unfussy narration is drenched in post-soviet pessimism and alcohol... readers trying to second-guess future twists will be astonished

Ready Player One expertly mines a copious vein of 1980s pop culture, catapulting the reader on a light-speed adventure in an advanced but backward-looking future. If this book were a living room, it would be wood-paneled. If it were shoes, it would be high-tops. And if it were a song, well, it would have to be Eye of the Tiger. I really, really loved it.

The pure, unfettered brainscream of a child of the 80s, like a dream my 13-year-old self would have had after bingeing on Pop Rocks and Coke...I couldn't put it down

Pure geek heaven. Ernest Cline's hero competes in a virtual world with life-and-death stakes -- which is only fitting, because he's fighting to make his dreams into reality. Cline blends a dystopic future with meticulously detailed nostalgia to create a story that will resonate in the heart of every true nerd

I was blown away by this book...Ernie Cline has pulled the raddest of all magic tricks: he's managed to write a novel that's at once serious and playful, that is as fun to read as it is harrowing. A book of ideas, a potboiler, a game-within-a-novel, a serious science-fiction epic, a comic pop culture mash-up-call this novel what you will, but READY PLAYER ONE will defy every label you try to put on it. Here, finally, is this generation's NEUROMANCER

Completely fricking awesome...This book pleased every geeky bone in my geeky body. I felt like it was written just for me

Pleasingly geeky novel ... No wonder there are plans to make into a film

Ready Player One is a fantastic adventure set in a futuristic world with a retro heart. Once I started reading, I didn't want to put it down and I couldn't wait to pick it back up

Cline's novel is a nerdcore odyssey; engaging and fun, this Gen-X popcult thrillride drew me in like a Galaxian machine set to free play.

Cline [crafts] a fresh and imaginative world from our old toy box ... Cline strikes the nerves of nerd culture as expertly as Andy played that skeleton organ in The Goonies

Totally awesome!

I would recommend this book in a heartbeat...young or old - it's just brilliant!

In the safe hands of none other than Mr. Steven Spielberg, this is your last chance to read the book before the movie hype drowns out the written word. A mixed up dystopian fantasy adventure novel with more nods to 80’s pop culture than even the biggest John Hughes fan will be able to handle, it’s just a whole lot of fun to read

This is one you need to read before EVERYONE knows about it!

Ultimately entertaining, enthusiastic and enjoyable. A real must-have for any collection…a beautifully constructed piece of escapism which will pull you in with such vigour that you miss your train stop.

Powerful and very timely message