Murakami writes of contemporary Japan, urban alienation and journeys of self-discovery, and in this book he combines recollections of the war with metaphysics, dreams and hallucinations into a powerful and impressionistic work

Deeply philosophical and teasingly perplexing, it is impossible to put down

Murakami weaves these textured layers of reality into a shot-silk garment of deceptive beauty

Critics have variously likened him to Raymond Carver, Raymond Chandler, Arthur C. Clarke, Don DeLillo, Philip K. Dick, Bret Easton Ellis and Thomas Pynchon - a roster so ill assorted as to suggest Murakami is in fact an original

Mesmerising, surreal, this really is the work of a true original

How does Murakami manage to make poetry while writing of contemporary life and emotions? I am weak-kneed with admiration

[A] mesmeric story

Visionary...a bold and generous book

With her sun-bleached Hollywood setting, Kaplan transports us to another world - one which is achingly familiar. A novel which makes us examine our own complicity, while also weaving in threads of tenderness, drive and office-based humour which at times feels delightfully absurd . . . I inhaled this book - and came up for air still reeling

Ambition bites back in Isabel Kaplan's Not Safe For Work, a novel that hits close to a few recent news events . . . So visceral is the narrator's voice that every time I opened the book felt like sliding into uncomfortable heels. Brave

An intoxicating exploration of male-dominated workplaces . . . NSFW is gripping, with a lot to unpack, making it excellent book-club fodder

An energetic page-turner with plenty of delicious insights into Hollywood . . . and countless witty, wry passages

Frank, funny and unputdownable, Isabel Kaplan's NSFW takes you on an ambitious young woman's wild ride through Hollywood. Her mother's a famous feminist lawyer, and she's a rising executive star, mistress of her destiny. But behind the glitter and the justice, everyone is tarnished and compromised - including even our narrator. Kaplan, with her sharp and nuanced eye, sees it all, and tells it brilliantly.

A frank account of the inherent filthiness of leaning in. A study of the psychological, and at times literal, gymnastics that are required of striving women.

I read this steely investigation of workplace ambition and patriarchal complicity in one sitting, my alliances shifting with every page. Funny, insightful, and enraging in all the best ways, NSFW is a fiercely smart debut that turns its gaze back on the reader, forcing you to ask just how far you'd go - and who you'd throw under the bus - for a seat at the table.

A stunning portrayal of intergenerational family love and the complications of the human condition. I was swept up in the world of the Aylward women: in their power and pain and mostly, in their fierce resilience. A novel full of compassion and honesty, where love triumphs. The prose is pitch perfect.

Hymn to the warp and woof of life; celebration of the flip-flop way of family; soaring testimony to the endurance of the human spirit. And all delivered with his trademark compassion, empathy, humour and brio. A gift of a book.

A compelling read

Big-hearted, generous and brimful of emotion, this is a gorgeous, life-enhancing novel.

Ryan's writing is like poetry and he has a real gift for creating characters who live in full technicolour. Highly recommend

In Ryan's hands the mundane and the everyday is transformed into a thing of beauty, thrumming with significance.

Tender with comic observation ... a topsy-turvy emotional rollercoaster

Magical

Exquisitely rendered. It reads like musical sounds, full of light and lilting melody...it's funny and sad, and sparks with the most tremendous, tart, wit.

The characters are compelling and vividly drawn, the dialogue is profane and frequently hilarious; the prose drips like honey off a spoon.

A jewel of a novel that will surely become a classic... enthralling and unmissable

A celebration of love and loyalty among women.

Big-hearted, generous and brimful of emotion, this a gorgeous, life-enhancing read

It is a beaut. It's a celebration of women and of womanhood. I see my mother in this, I see my sister ... This book is a joy.

If language - lyric, lovely and funny, steeped in County Tipperary - and women (men come and go, rarely center a chapter and are often useless, sometimes cruel) are of no interest to you, The Queen of Dirt Island is not your next read. Ryan's book is a celebration, in an embroidered, unrestrained, joyful, aphoristic and sometimes profane style, of both ... The Queen of Dirt Island gives the women their due, and the reader is rewarded.

Donal Ryan's The Queen of Dirt Island is a little Irish miracle ... there's as much implicit wisdom in these pages about how to live as how to write ... Ryan has his own emotional range and a way of capturing the largeness of what look like tiny lives but aren't

Ambitious, unsettling and funny, this book is full of desire and mischief with surprising results.