Dickens was one of the greatest writers of English...unforgettable characters. I was lying in hospital one time and I thought I'd never laugh again but this book changed that

My father, who left school at 15, was a Dickens enthusiast, and encouraged me to read his books when I was a boy. My favourite was The Pickwick Papers and every Christmas Eve, for several years, I used to reread the chapters about Christmas at Dingley Dell as a ritualistic preparation for the eagerly awaited holiday

Dickens writes as though he were talking to us after dinner, in turns funny, bitter, eloquent, and sad

If I must choose only one Dickens then it's his first novel. It's wonderfully funny, kind and good-natured - just like dear Mr Pickwick himself

I was instantly swept up in Dickens' exploding world of eccentrics and grotesques, at the heart of which a hige affection for mankind

Anne Rice has done it again. In her latest novel, The Wolf Gift, the woman who single-handedly, reinvented the vampire genre puts her formidable talent to work rewriting 'were-wolf' lore and in the end succeeds magnificently.

[A]n energetic gambol, feisty and terrific fun. . . . [A] fast-paced, heady romp that ranks with her best. . . The Wolf Gift is irresistible.

[I]n Rice's hands, The Wolf Gift evolves from a fantastical romp into an engrossing thriller. . .

Wilde at his height, in The Picture of Dorian Gray (like The Wolf Gift, a morality tale about transformation), is Rice’s true precursor. He preferred paradox to uncomplicated alternatives, and was most at home in the dark light of ghost stories, church shadows and fairy tales. This is the energy of The Wolf Gift. It is wit-filled, languid and vibrant, brainy and snarling. It will leave open-minded readers howling for more.

A superior thriller... the mix of ancient and modern, familiar and inventive, and the fact that Rice easily drops in elements that other people would save for a quick sequel – all this proves there is MORE in this book. And ultimately that means more satisfaction.

I didn't want to put it down for a second.

The Wolf Gift is pure Anne Rice. It is dark. It is romantic. It is fast-paced and gripping. It is engaging and perhaps most importantly, it is fresh. Anne Rice has done with werewolves, exactly what she’s done for vampires, witches and angels and given them a complete make-over and her individual twist on their background. She’s re-invented and re-written the mythology of the genre.

Anne Rice of the famous Vampire Chronicles is back, but this time she has put her fangs away and comes baring claws... This is sure to mark the beginning of a new saga for Rice and is equally sure to the guilty pleasure for many a fantasy horror fan.

A quietly compelling and provocative work

A dark and sinewy novel, written with sparse clarity and affecting subtlety

In a year marked by epics, it's a relief to delve into this quiet, surprisingly tense debut novel - small enough to stuff in a stocking but packing a huge emotional punch

A novel of subtle beauty and quiet grace; I found myself hanging on every simple word, as tense about the consequences of a man finding an apartment as if I were reading about a man defusing a bomb. ... It is one of the best novels I have read in a long time. ... With elegant restraint, Baxter layers the narratives, anecdotes and experiences in the manner of life as continuous essay, the topic of which might be stated as, "What is a right way to be in the world?" ... It is very much to Baxter's credit that he presents this struggle as if it were thriller, love story, philosophical novel and dark comedy combined, in a novel not liek a bullet but like an arrow flying straight to the heart of the matter.

A quiet and powerful read through and through. Baxter's clean and direct prose generates its own momentum. He chooses not to create a tidy drama where characters are explained by their pasts. Rather, he creates something bigger and more true.

Compelling ... captures the mood of the current moment and what seems to be a new "lost generation", one formed not so much by exposure to violence, as immunity to and alienation from it. Once upon a time, there was no place like home; in Mr. Baxter's world, home, it seems, is no place.

Absorbing, atmospheric and enigmatic ... With its disorienting juxtaposition of the absolutely ordinary and the strange and vaguely threatening, the novel evokes the work of Franz Kafka and Haruki Murakami, while its oblique explorations of memory suggest a debt to W.G. Sebald

A thrilling follow-up to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island...Silver is a novel that will appeal to readers of all ages. Beautifully written and genuinely exciting...Best of all, Motion’s novel stays true to Stevenson’s original tale while adding an extra dimension.

Elegant, thrilling sequel...The plot is gripping, a mixture of high adventure, low cunning and desperation...Motion’s prose vivid and glowingly poetic, is a brilliant counterpoint to the fascinating action.

This is a pacey tale with an appropriately feisty young heroine for modern readers

Andrew Motion brings lyricism but, more importantly, rollicking adventure to this sequel to Treasure Island