The mark of exceptional historical fiction is its creation of an alien world so convincing (and peopled by such fascinating characters) that the reader never wants to go back to the real one. Scott Oden delivers exactly that in The Lion of Cairo, a tale of that reads like a cross between the 'Arabian Nights' and a Hollywood blockbuster. Men of Bronze and Memnon put Mr Oden squarely on the historical fiction map. The Lion of Cairo assures his place in the very front rank

Filled to the brim with assassins and concubines, caliphs and street thugs, the devout and the heretical. It's partly a swashbuckling historical, partly a tale of palace intrigue, partly a fast and furious espionage yarn. A terrific trip into Cairo's exotic past. Just pray the Emir of the Knife is on your side

With wonderfully eccentric characters this debut novel about the lives of New Yorkers, penned by a true native, is a great read

The first literary novel that really switched me on was Christopher Isherwood's Mr Norris Changes Trains

He immortalised Berlin in two short, brilliant novels both published in the Thirties, Mr Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye To Berlin, inventing a new form for future generations - intimate, stylised reportage in loosely connected episodes

Mr Norris Changes Trains brought him recognition as one of the most promising young writers of his generation

The style is graceful and deliciously readable, and the novel ends with an unforgettably eerie and moving image'

AL Kennedy manages to convey an edgy modernity within relatively standard narrative forms...written with the tonal meticulousness of genuine literature

Be warned, Kennedy is a good storyteller, and an even better observer, possessing immaculate timing... She also writes very well: there is an almost jaunty ease about her prose

Kennedy has a way of pinning words down and forcing the truth out of them that makes her fiction alarming. There is pleasure in reading these extraordinary stories, but there is also pain

There is poetic life in so many of Kennedy's images... She can be very funny too... very original, very startling

These tightly compressed short stories are deft portraits of people under extreme pressure, delivered with a surreal perspective that oddly serves to compound their power...her writing is superb: almost every word in this flinty, almost unbearably sad collection matters

It's a testament to her talent and her humanity that these broken lives are life-affirming in the way that only good art can be

Kennedy is attuned to the shock of separation, as well as the pain ... Kennedy is adept at different types of stories

A virtuoso of prose

A L Kennedy's short stories are rare pearls, all seductive surface and dark depths

What admirable richness and complexity

Kennedy has such control over her material that it never overwhelms the reader or becomes showily gothic

There's no denying that these utterly controlled stories have a power, humanity, and even beauty of their own

While What Becomes is not always an easy book to read, Kennedy's linguistic inventiveness, wild humour and compassion make it an unexpectedly joyful one

Twelve stories from the manic mistress of comically vitriolic observation

Savour this book

Kennedy specialises in acute observations of thought... In this collection of short stories, she inhabits unhappy couples, lonely shopkeepers and strangers in hotel rooms to searing, painful and comic effect

A virtuoso performance...This is a collection of stories that will be re-reading exceptionally well, like an album of brilliant songs you keep wanting to hear again

Funny and furious, Kennedy's tales of floundering marriages and domestic disappointment follow an anarchic path of their own

Kennedy's superlative work always attracts admiration