Refreshingly different . . . exhilarating . . . a compulsively readable, life-affirming tale told in direct, lambent prose, and Chait does a masterful job of juxtaposing a traditional African setting with a convincing depiction of a far-future alien society.

Lyrical prose and imaginative world-building . . . the book is gripping, powerful and frequently impressive . . . an ambitious and intelligent work that marks out Chait as a writer worthy of further attention.

Out of this world engrossing. You don’t have to understand the science to believe in it . . . superb world building . . . aided by enchanting fables and philosophies weaved into the narrative, Lament for the Fallen is an often poetic, occasionally disturbing, and always enthralling tale that has all the thematic ingredients to make it one of the best sci-fi books of 2016.

Richly drawn . . . a smart, ideas-driven novel . . . a promising and ambitious debut.

Loved the whole experience as Gavin brought solid world building into the mix alongside cracking pace as well as dialogue that just tripped off the page . . . a great read . . . Magic.

Highly readable . . . Chait should be applauded for managing that all important trick of getting you to keep turning that page until there aren't any left . . . smart, ideas-led science fiction with a literary fiction bent.

Astonishingly accomplished . . . the writing is very elegant, switching between scenes of shocking brutality and images of incredible beauty, but the thing that really sets this book apart from other sci-fi that I’ve read is its heart. A deep humanity animates the very core of the book . . . a beautifully constructed novel, interrogating the question of what makes us human and what makes us humane . . . do seek out this novel because I think you’ll be intrigued and pleasantly surprised even if you don’t normally read sci-fi.

Full of nostalgia and gentleness as well as being sharply observant

Chingonyi’s poems are full of questions that need asking. His gift is for pushing poems further than you expected them to go. [A] striking quest of a debut

Powerful… These poems are essential and urgent and shine a light on British culture in an unique and spellbinding way

Kumakanda is an essential collection from one of the UK's most exciting poets. Kayo's poetry is beautiful, thoughtful, musical and nostalgic

A wonderful debut: music, race, deracination, love and death are all woven into a compelling portrait of a young man growing up, rendered in poems that are elegant yet conversational, fluent yet profoundly skillful, touched with heart-stopping lyricism. For the reader, an initiation not to be missed

When James Baldwin described the writer's goal as stringing together sentences that were as clean as a bone, he wasn't to know that poet Kayo Chingonyi's debut collection Kumukanda would achieve exactly that

The title poem Kumukanda is elegant, eloquent and moving... For all the particularity of his subject matters and his openness in exploring them, it’s the fine and sophisticated writing that makes me return to these poems

Exceedingly powerful; by turns furious, tender and bittersweet, taking as it does the overall theme of in-betweens. Ancestry versus contemporary rites of passage. The ambiguous versus the undeniable. Who you are, and who you choose to be seen as, versus who others perceive you to be

Chingonyi is the living writer who inspires and influences me the most

A beautiful exploration of grief and boyhood... Each poem is delivered with such precision and deftness

Underground Airlines is a powerful work … a brave, controversial thriller.

A great premise … but slavery scenes will haunt you.

An almost painfully timely novel.

Winters does an amazing job of painting a world that never was but, in his hands, is frighteningly plausible … Winters has crafted a thrilling, tightly plotted and nourish thriller.

If you’re looking for a brilliant, smart, chilling page turner for what’s left of the summer, I can recommend Ben H. Winters.

Winters does an amazing job of painting a world that next we was, but in his hands, are frighteningly plausible … Winters could not have written a more timely novel.

Groundbreaking.

A really intriguing premise.

On the surface, Underground Airlines is a well-crafted thriller, suspenseful and with fascinating characters. But not far below the surface is a philosophical debate about how one small change of events in history can put the world on a different path.

‘Intriguing’

There is more than one idiot in this delightful and slyly funny coming-of-age novel... Will strike a chord for any former fresher who felt the same way. (That would be all of us.)

Batuman, in seemingly writing a novel about nothing, has produced an incredibly complex, accurate and funny novel.

I never want to finish it, so I’m reading it very slowly.

Every page is thicketed with jokes, riffs, theories of language. It’s a portrait of an intellectual and sentimental education that offers almost unseemly pleasure.

Elif Batuman is a real writer, and should be allowed to write whatever the hell she likes.

Selin’s deadpan narration is often very funny indeed

This is a capacious book that creates an alternative world

At once clever and clueless, Batuman’s heroine shows us with just how messy it can be to forge a self

One of the best novels I read all summer... a painstakingly accurate depiction of the balancing act that is student-life. As clever as it is funny, Batuman's debut novel allows us to laugh at our own stupidity, and celebrate our own cluelessness.

The Idiot... manages the trick of being laugh-out-loud funny while not actually being a comedy. It just observers life, in all its truth and is hilarious for page after page.

I finally read The Idiot by Elif Batuman and everyone is correct, she is clearly a genius