It's a generous, likable, diligent and smart piece of work

Ruth Padel is Virgil in the 'Inferno' of poetry. She guides the reader gently and deftly on the journey... This is much more than a book about poetry, this is a handbook for living!

Brilliant... Padel draws on a huge range of references to make a powerful case for poetry as a living art form

As a writer you would probably choose Ruth Padel as your ideal reader. Her eye misses very little of the nudging and winking that goes on in a poem, and she seems able to tune into the silent music of text on the page...she finds more than most to engage with and enjoy

An enlivening, illuminating book, lucid, accessible and probing

This vivid and illuminating book opens many pathways for the reader of contemporary poetry, bringing to bear not only current thinking but the whole world of the past, particularly the past of Greek experience

The ideal guide for the apprehensive reader of contemporary poetry... Her beguilingly informal style entertains and informs along the way. It is one of the book's great strengths that she is never lofty, nor condescending, nor a show off

A pleasingly unpredictable mix of traditional and radical... It's clever, thought-provoking

Pynchon can be totally maddening, but he has a great sense of mischief

Clever and inventive in a mad professor kind of way...Intermittently warmed by paragraph-long sunbeams of iridescent prose-poetry

A fast elasticism running from slangy to stately, a voice full of echoes, littered with jokes and songs, and often reaching into a curious tenderness, a tone of laid back elegy.... this amazing writer continues to be amazing, and in much the same way he always was

‘[Toni Morrison’s] irreverence was godly’

A beautiful book and it's beautifully written

My favourite book of all time

Morrison's stunning trilogy is an evocation of black life over the past four centuries. It defies summary. Completed almost 25 years ago, these novels top anything produced by any American writer including Hemingway, Updike and DeLillo

[A] beautiful, haunting novel

More than one of Morrison's books could be classed as masterpieces, but this one is famous for a reason: everyone should read it

A magnificent achievement...an American masterpiece

A triumph

She melds horror and beauty in a story that will disturb the mind forever

Toni Morrison is not just an important contemporary novelist but a major figure in our national literature

A work of genuine force. . .Beautifully written

There is something great in Beloved: a play of human voices, consciously exalted, perversely stressed, yet holding true. It gets you

Superb. . .A profound and shattering story that carries the weight of history. . .Exquisitely told

This is a wonderful novel about slavery, freedom, parental loss and revenants