Spark's most celebrated novel

There is no question about the quality and distinctiveness of her writing, with its quirky concern with human nature, and its comedy

A brilliant psychological figure

Imagine you're on a roller-coaster ... suddenly, without warning, it tips vertiginously, so quickly that your chest constricts and while you're there, suspended, momentarily, at the apex of this roller-coaster, you're aware suddenly of a kind of clarity, a totally new perspective on everything below. Greg Baxter's The Apartment is a bit like this ... Full of unshowy wisdom and surprising moments of beauty

Baxter's superbly elegant, understated writing explores the dynamics of America's relationship with the rest of the world

His protagonist is not merely struggling beneath the weight of the violence in his own life story; he grapples with the larger sense of history that infuses the text with an effect that recalls WG Sebald. ... There's a maturity to The Apartment not often found in debut novels.

Exceptional - a book rich in ideas and poetry. Its power is accumulative and it moves with a calm and yet inevitable progress. It is a deeply mysterious and admirable book.

The Apartment is a small novel - but it's actually huge. Clever, entertaining, brave; it stretches the rules while following a man through one day of his life. I loved it.

An interesting, honourable novel

The Apartment is a wonderfully beguiling novel, evoking to perfection that sense of eerie possibility one has when in a strange city. Its account of a new friendship poised on the edge of love is superbly sure-footed.

Beautiful. Magnificent. Heartbreaking. Greg Baxter is a true original.

A stunning book - beautifully constructed, elegantly written and deeply felt

The Apartment is a mesmerising story of lostness, friendship and dwelling. Both breathtaking and hauntingly beautiful, Greg Baxter's first novel is as crisp and joyful as freshly fallen snow.

A writer of considerable gifts ... Baxter, who now lives in Berlin, is so good at conjuring up the atmosphere of his chilly and crowded city (probably Eastern European and probably fictional) and the character of its inhabitants that you come to feel that you're living there among them in their noisy, bustling cafes and their freezing thoroughfares. ... Baxter shows mastery, too, in his vividly realised characters, especially the charming Saskia

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

If you too loved the colloquial tangle of Trainspotting, you'll find a similar rhythm in Skagboys.

There is enough of what Welsh does well - needle-sharp dialogue, vivid characters and a certainty of place - to make Skagboys his best work in many years…an essential read.

A cracking read.

Very good.

The prose flows easily, underpinned with a wry humour that counters the harsh, modern realism

Totally awesome!

I would recommend this book in a heartbeat...young or old - it's just brilliant!

In the safe hands of none other than Mr. Steven Spielberg, this is your last chance to read the book before the movie hype drowns out the written word. A mixed up dystopian fantasy adventure novel with more nods to 80’s pop culture than even the biggest John Hughes fan will be able to handle, it’s just a whole lot of fun to read

This is one you need to read before EVERYONE knows about it!

Ultimately entertaining, enthusiastic and enjoyable. A real must-have for any collection…a beautifully constructed piece of escapism which will pull you in with such vigour that you miss your train stop.

Powerful and very timely message

This novel's great achievement is to capture the tensions and subtleties of a married life cut short… I read [it] virtually in one sitting, but that's a fairly common experience with Anne Tyler books… I didn't want it to end. Which is also a fairly common Tyler thing.

The Beginner’s Goodbye is a very funny book … every incident is at once recognizably true to life and yet somehow utterly off-kilter.

Brims with wry perceptiveness and rueful humour

Tyler's playful humour imbues this unsentimental portrait of a mismatched marriage

A cleverly observed tale of an imperfect relationship and grief

A bittersweet, utterly beguiling story of love and loss from a brilliant writer

Both compelling and deeply touching, once you start reading you won’t want The Beginner’s Goodbye to end

It begins with one of those sentences that impels you to read on…Tyler’s haunting tale of love and loss is intelligent, unsentimental and often wryly funny

A lovely, stylish way to write a novel about marriage

A beautifully poignant portrait of marriage, loss and grief

Exhibit[s] all the delicious readability that admirers of Tyler expect

Both compelling and deeply touching, once you start reading you won't want The Beginner's Goodbye to end

An emotionally satisfying book with wise and moving moments

Cline [crafts] a fresh and imaginative world from our old toy box ... Cline strikes the nerves of nerd culture as expertly as Andy played that skeleton organ in The Goonies.