This novel is one of modern literature's greatest, most poignant elegies

Kawabata's narrative spirals through the book's events in ruminative glides and turns... There is a kind of low-key daring, an austere, autumnal nobility, in Kawabata's tale

An archetypal saga... there are storms and landscapes as cool, as luminous, as any in Japanese paintings and woodcuts

An affecting debut. Hannah proves himself a worthy inheritor of the lip-trembling English tradition.

Genuinely one of the best books I've ever read.

Hannah's debut is told on the deathbed of 40-year-old Ivo as he looks back on his life in the confidence of his nurse Sheila and the love of his life, Mia. Expect tears.

An engagingly light touch, shot through with humour

It is wonderfully well written and hard to believe this is James Hannah's debut novel. Very early on I felt this was going to be a book I loved and I was right.

As The A to Z of You and Me drew to a close (with me sobbing), I thought about how kind people can be. How hard, beautiful and frustrating life is. And how we should make the effort to engage with it fully. It is, after all, fleeting at best.

I loved The A-Z of You and Me. James Hannah has an unerring eye for the tiniest detail within the biggest picture. This wry and tender love story is powerful, lyrical and moving'

Beautifully constructed and hugely moving. Deserves to be a smash hit.

Funny and sweet, whilst also being heartbreaking and thoroughly real throughout.

What a book! I am heartbroken.

So beautiful ... a stunning, unique debut

Wonderfully well written and hard to believe this is James Hannah's debut novel. Very early on I felt this was going to be a book I loved and I was right.

Sad and funny in equal measure but also quite uplifting about the power of the human spirit. An author who I am sure will continue to go from strength to strength.

This book broke my heart.

This is a really engrossing, interesting read and a book I just couldn't put down.

The story is sad, yet it is uplifting. The characters are flawed, yet human. I was very impressed by this novel. It is a delight to read and to recommend to others.

I was completely sucked into this book and flew through the pages. I loved it.

This book has moved me and it has changed me, and isn't that what it is all about? It is only March and I don't know if anything will top this one this year for me. Essential reading.

Take Trainspotting, cut out the swearing, and add a filter of nuanced meditations on love: welcome to The A to Z of You and Me. I absolutely loved this book.

'David Nicholls' school of commercial fiction. An accomplished piece of fiction, both entertaining and thought-provoking

Spare, poignant and with a quirky charm all of its own, it reminds us how kind people can be

Wonderful and heartbreaking.

Hannah writes with emotional acuity. Warm, wry, thoughtful and devastating in places, this is a life-enhancing missive from death's door.

Told its heart-breaking tale with tenderness and verve.

A work full of secrets, shame and scandal.

A story of what can be found when so much has been snatched away.

A meditation on enduring the unendurable… This is a wonderful and deeply moving novel.

A beautiful, heart-rending novel of quiet, understated tragedy… Sensitive and insightful, heart-breaking and hopeful… [A] tender, wise and hopeful novel.