As if Jane Austen were rewriting Terry Pratchett: snorts and chortles plus elegant eyebrow-raising… Bold literary and historical misadventures, told with a twist and a lightness of touch.

The reader can enjoy the same level of affectionate detail that the Pythons brought to Monty Python and the Holy Grail… Phillips clearly delights in the world of [King Arthur] and…subverts fantasy motif in refreshing and absurd ways… Very good fun.

The Table of Less Valued Knights infects Arthurian legend with a brio not seen since Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Very funny… It’s a real joy to read a novel that makes you snort out loud with laughter.

This confirms [Phillips] as a genius comic writer… This is Camelot – but as you have never seen it.

Entertainingly rollicking.

The author bends a lot of historical and literary myths to humourous effect.

a joy to read

An exceptional tale of a family in crisis . . . at once intimate and sweeping, profoundly subtle and yet remarkably affecting, the story reminds the reader that public catastrophe interrupts myriad smaller, but no less devastating, private troubles, magnifying their consequences and obstructing their resolution. This is a mesmerizing, heart-wrenching story of love and regret, but ultimately, and most assuredly, the healing generosity of hope. I couldn't put it down. I read the end on an airplane, and had to hide my tears from the other passengers.

Full of delicate imagery drawing on Japanese nature and culture, this is a rich, romantic story, brimming with restrained emotion – with a twist that will take your breath away. Superb.

This is a truly wonderful novel about the intricacies of parenting, regret, forgiveness and the exquisite pain of love

A gorgeous book

Barrett reworks Kafka’s family drama as an urban odyssey and make a stunning success of it.