Extraordinary tour de force ... For perhaps the first time in our literature, a kind of anti-Western Western

Hemingway gave the century a way of making literary art that dealt with the remarkable violence of our time. He listened and watched and invented the language - using the power, the terror, of silences - with which we could name ourselves

Coetzee is a unique voice; no novelist explores the ideas and the power of literature and the sense of displacement so boldly. Slow Man will add to his immense reputation

Remorselessly human, it is also funny and touching: Coetzee the artist remains the complete novelist

A tremendous and startling novel... Coetzee is a novelist who cares about every word. Slow Man confirms him as among our greatest living authors

Compelling

Joughin's characters are always tangible. Yet while her dialogue has the ring of authenticity, the inclusion of selected lines from Larkin, Hughes and Yeats ensures an appealing languor

Joughin's second novel confirms her gift for mining tragi-comic gems from outposts of shabby bohemia

Joughin's poetic prose perfectly conveys the delicacy of human emotion, and the frequent disjunction between art and life'

Like a cross between Margaret Drabble and Francoise Sagan

Joughin has an appealing darkness and urgency, as she potently conveys the pleasures and pains of human interactions

Adeptly written and enjoyable... Ruth's childhood perspectives are extremely well captured

Striking story of Ruth and Gray under the spell of famous poets' lives

Reading Joughin's second novel is like immersing yourself in a cool pool at a hazy summer party ...as addictively abrasive as a shot of cold vodka, this wil leave you both refreshed and gasping for stability

This darkly comic story about unpredictable love is perfect if you're looking for some intelligent chicklit