Electric . . . this rich collection of essays, reviews, interviews and more . . . are not only the backstory to his fictional method, but often another expression of it

Engagingly whimsical . . . a wry sense of humour . . . there are gems to be mined. And, like real precious stones, they are found in unlikely places

Glimmering insight and wit . . . incisive . . . reading this book is time spent with a first-rate mind

Playful . . . unfailingly stimulating . . . there are plenty of delights

It is for these moments of pathos, irony and honesty, when palaces of dazzling reflection are swept aside and the most adventurous thinking is undone, that one reads Italo Calvino

Intelligent, witty, pleasingly erudite and razor-sharp

Wonderful . . . surveys his varied interests and discerning style . . . Calvino's prose is sparkling as ever, and he approaches ideas with wit and an open mind, always ready to challenge a stale point of view. This anthology will delight Calvino fans old and new

This Other Eden is ultimately a testament of love: love of kin, love of nature, love of art, love of self, love of home . . . The humans he has created are, thankfully, not flattened into props and gimmicks, which sometimes happens when writers work across time and difference; instead they pulse with aliveness, dreamlike but tangible, so real it could make you weep.

Powerful . . . a moving indictment of a shocking episode in America's past that is rendered in lyrical prose.

[Harding] writes with the gravitas of a mythmaker . . . The pace of Harding's storytelling is stately, his descriptions, even of small events, gorgeous . . . This Other Eden is beautiful and agonizing.

Beautiful . . . Perhaps the chief wonder of this novel is its vivid depictions of a community that is loving, longstanding, peculiar, full of surprises, filled with history, both dark and joyous and above all, functional and self-sustaining - until as has happened so many times and so many places, someone comes along to mess it up.

In boldly lyrical prose, This Other Eden shows us a once-thriving racial utopia in its final days, at a time when race and science were colliding in chilling ways. In the stories of the Apple Islanders - especially that of Ethan Honey, spared a destructive fate because of his artistic gifts and his fair skin - we are made to confront the ambiguous nature of mercy, the limits of tolerance, and what it means to truly be saved. A luminous, thought-provoking novel.

A special book by a rare writer.

Harding, who won a dark-horse Pulitzer Prize for Tinkers, again demonstrates his gifts for concision and compassion in a narrative that balances historical fact with fully drawn characters. . . . Sure to be a standout of 2023.

There is no writer alive anything like Paul Harding, and This Other Eden proves it: astonishingly beautiful, humane, strange, interested in philosophy and the heart, stunningly written. It's about home, love, heredity, cruelty, and the very nature of art, so completely original it's hard to know how to describe it in a mere blurb, by which I mean: you must read this book.

Tender, magical, and haunting, Paul Harding's This Other Eden is that rare novel that makes profound claims on our present age while being, very simply, a graceful performance of language and storytelling. Here is prose that touchingly holds its imagined island community in a light that can only be described as generous and dazzling. I have not read a novel this achingly beautiful in a while, nor one in which the fate of its characters I will not soon forget.

An exquisite book which is both intimate and epic. The writing is polished, precise, luminous. A beautiful testament to people, and whole ways of life, which are have simply been removed from history, and leave hardly a trace behind.'

A tragic tale beautifully told.

A beautiful, brilliant book - it gives an accounting of the unimaginable losses suffered by a family and by a country, but it is as tender and fierce as it is mournful. It is unafraid to look directly at the worst of the violence and erasure we have perpetrated or allowed to happen, but is insistent that we can still choose to be better

Somehow heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time

Explores themes of female friendship, motherhood, ageing, love and disillusionment. Moyes brings her main characters - a unlikely group of women thrown together - to life, each as flawed as they are brilliant, and stronger together

Something to get excited about . . . [The] most compelling and readable of novels, which will make you wonder what it's really like to walk in someone else's shoes

Showcases Moyes' ability to portray emotion and female friendship with themes of love, betrayal, family, and hope. It is action packed and will have readers rooting for Nisha and Sam

Full of fun, unlikely friendships . . . and female empowerment, it's a welcome escape. A funny romp

A love letter to the strength of female friendship and how women can really be there for each other

A stirring tale of sisterhood, survival and being seen

A heartfelt story of mix-ups, mess-ups and making the most of second chances

Praise for Jojo Moyes

Moyes is on dazzling form in this big-hearted story

Raw, funny, real and sad, this is storytelling at its best

Blisteringly good

This truly beautiful story made us laugh, smile and sob like a baby - you simply have to read it

Entertaining, immersive and moving

Dazzling

Moyes somehow manages to break your heart before restoring your faith in love

A genuinely entertaining book, a really cracking story

Magnificent

Victory City can, in many ways, be read as an entertaining jaunt through Indian history, though it is history through the kaleidoscopic and sweeping lens of a fairy tale... this brilliantly magical tale.

This sweeping, intricately crafted fairy tale is underscored by very human characters and Rushdie's signature wit.

A grand entertainment, in a tale with many strands, by an ascended master of modern legends.

Rushdie's magical style unfurls wonders.

Rushdie's Victory City is another fabulous novel set in his native India... He's a master who never forgets that the main goal of a storyteller is to entertain rather than educate or pontificate.

Rushdie is, above all else...one of the most powerful defenders of story we have... Victory City is a victory for Rushdie - and for every reader who enters its gates.

Rushdie succeeds in creating a kind of incantatory prose that befits the fabulist nature of the story... he can enchant readers like few other writers.

This is a man at his full-strength, high-tar best - with his deeply humane worldview, his brilliance at set-pieces and, above all, the thrilling wildness of his imagination on irresistible display.

With its carousel of shifting politics and history, Victory City is Rushdie's most textured and triumphant wonder tale yet.

Utterly enchanting.

Rushdie's return to magic, myth, and India's ancient stories is dazzling. With mercurial prose and vivid renderings, Rushdie never loses us in Victory City's convolutions, but instead builds our trust to travail the many grand events of Pampa's imagined empire.

A rich, dramatic saga... The many moments of comedy...show Salman Rushdie's storytelling skills and his endearing sense of playfulness... the main feeling the reader gets is of a storyteller enjoying himself.

Rushdie is an expert at mixology; he's the DJ Shadow of text with references and allusions to high and low culture from Finnegans Wake to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon... a well-told tale that gets bums on seats.

There's a magical thread of storytelling running through the veins of each character we meet in this book... a joy to read.

A work of great imagination... In Victory City the power of the written word and of the storyteller remain triumphant.

Rushdie’s sheer love of fiction is irrepressible.

A wonderfully entertaining literary hybrid

Victory City is Salman Rushdie at his imaginative best… sweeping the reader on a journey that feels epic in a mere 320 pages

From start to finish, the reader or listener can only be impressed by the literary flair of Rushdie's compelling storytelling... Victory City is a joy to listen to.