It is an elegy for lost times and family life

Towering and glorious: a tale of social, familial and marital breakdown . . . and the End of the World. The funniest literary novel I have ever read.

An ambitious platter of intellection and emotion. Its observations are crisp; its intimations of doom resonate; its jokes are funny. Foer's best and most caustic novel, filled with so much pain and regret that your heart sometimes struggles to hold it all. Has more teeming life in it than several hundred well-meaning and well-reviewed books of midlist fiction put together.

A brilliantly acrobatic imagination

Foer writes like a dream. . . big-hearted, courageous and jaw-droppingly clever

Provocative . . . very, very funny. Dialogue pings, as animated and inventive as an Aaron Sorkin script.

Lays bare the interior of a marriage with such intelligence and deep feeling and pitiless clarity, it's impossible to read it and not re-examine your own family.

Terrific, truthful, extremely funny and heartbreaking.

A rich, beautifully written, ambitious and grandly moving novel, which looks both at the world at large and at the deepest concerns of individual lives.

Unarguably Foer's most substantial and impressive work yet.

Astonishing. So sad and so funny and so wry. The book that The Corrections ought to have been.

Brilliant, masterly, always original.

A readable and informative book that should help to lay to rest some of the many misconceptions about the condition.

A brilliant evocation of a young man’s difficult relationship with a stigmatized disease.

A scholarly yet highly readable account of the history of – as well as current thinking on – epilepsy.

Thanks to A Smell of Burning we are encouraged to put into question our own perceptions of what constitutes balance and harmony, in our brains, our minds, and the world around us.

An informative book that will hopefully encourage readers to show more empathy.

Fascinating, moving and deeply personal.

Written by a former medic whose younger brother was an epileptic, this is a superb personal and historical account of the effect the condition has on the lives of sufferers and those around them

This is a sharply poignant and sad memoir. It’s also a brilliant historical and medical analysis.

Morgenstern paints precise, evocative and visually lush scenes within the tents of her fictional circus… a genuine pleasure to read. Like any successful illusion, it could be carefully unraveled but surely it should simply be enjoyed

For all its whimsy, the author’s lush, evocative, dreamlike prose is not as sugar-coated as it sounds. Her writing is delectable, addictive stuff, and this is an accomplished, refreshingly unusual debut

Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents, Le Cirque des Reves is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazement

A phantasmagorical fairytale for grown-ups

Absolutely spellbinding! A wonderful mix of history and magic that will keep you captivated. We love this magical debut!

Enough here to satisfy fans of JK Rowling or even Suzanna Clarke

For ultimate holiday escapism delve into Morgenstern’s tale… Expect some unfamiliar acts and a good old love story in there too

Enchanting and whimsical historical fantasy, this is a delight for the imagination with its breathtaking imagery, intriguing plot, and beautiful writing

Lush, evocative, dreamlike...a magical, coming-of-age story

Dark and dreamy; a captivating love story

Deliciously inventive... Don't imagine this is a light, frothy tale. For all her humorous touches, Morgernstern...has produced something darker than night

Dazzling

The only response to this novel is simply: wow. It is a breathtaking feat of imagination, a flight of fancy that pulls you in and wraps you up in its spell

An extraordinary blend of dream and nightmare will take you on a magical journey

Charming, magical, mysterious, enthralling

Lushly imagined, extremely charming and very, very readable

The Night Circus made me happy. Playful and intensely imaginative, Erin Morgenstern has created the circus I have always longed for. This is a marvelous book

The Night Circus pulls you into a world as dark as it is dazzling, fully-realized but still something out of a dream. You will not want to leave it

Pure pleasure... Erin Morgenstern is a gifted, classic storyteller, a tale-teller, a spinner of the charmed and mesmerizing - I had many other things I was supposed to be doing, but the book kept drawing me back in and I tore through it. You can be certain this riveting debut will create a group of rêveurs all its own

This 19th-Century Anglo-American costume drama about two star-crossed lovers in a fantastical travelling circus is as dreamlike and magical as its setting

I'm not often lost for words, but I'm struggling to find the words to describe just how good this book is and how it made me feel, so I'll just say this: if you are only able to read one book for the rest of your life, make sure it is The Night Circus. You won't regret it

This must be one of the most beautiful novels of the year. Its die-cut cover, black-edged pages and intricate endpapers attest to the publisher's hopes that Erin Morgenstern's magically minded debut will secure the vast audience left bereft by the conclusion of the Harry Potter chronicles

The narrative is deft and satisfying, and the author's talent is intriguing

Enchanting, and affecting... I was compelled by the world itself - by its saturated colours and textures, its unexpected smells and tastes. It is a surprisingly rare thing in fiction - a strikingly beautiful world, in spite of its darkness

Morgenstern's writing, when it comes to magical creations, is delectable, addictive stuff...[it] leaves a tang of smoky caramel in the air as it ends, and an undeniable urge to go to the circus

A beguiling, gripping read... Morgenstern has crafted a thrilling and transporting tale

Extraordinary, atmospheric, a mind-spinning story

This week's hot read...I loved this book and didn't want it to end... Totally absorbing and beautifully descriptive, it created a whole world I couldn't help but get lost in, especially the slow-burning love story between the two main characters, who are both sorcerers

Enter the magical world of a mysterious travelling circus

The new One Day... Erin Morgenstern is the talk of the literary world and we hear The Night Circus will be the next big thing. Set in a mysterious, monochrome circus the book centres on two young magicians who begin to fall in love

Fantasy blends seamlessly with reality and I ended up having to use words like this: enchanting

Erin Morgenstern's astonishingly vivid imagination made the unbelievable believable...in other words I fell for it all... There is illusion and delusion, shape-shifting, manipulation and deceit, misdirection and more often than not all is definitely not what it seems as the story unfolds, and if you are as unforgiving as I am of entire books written in the present tense, in this case, as you read you will see why it is necessary. The present tense embraces shifting time whether past or future, it is actually always the present ..see I can hardly make sense of it myself, you need to read it to see how well it works. And yes, I was enchanted, and I did run away with the circus as young Bailey does, and as I closed the book of course I came back to reality gently wondering whether I was supposed to be thinking, how long before Bailey meets Mr Barnum

An enchanting tale of forbidden love, set against the spectacular backdrop of the circus

A recommendation by Audrey Niffenegger...should ensure this amazing debut novel gets the attention it deserves

Fantasy lovers, here comes Harry Potter for grown-ups... The story is already en-route to Hollywoood so snap up the original tale first

It is rich, evocative, compelling, enchanting, whimsical, breath-taking, playful, imaginative, marvellous, and quite simply beautiful in every single way. I love it

Rich in Shakespearean allusion, this is McEwan on dazzling form.

Told from a perspective unlike any other, Nutshell is a classic tale of murder and deceit from one of the world’s master storytellers.

Ian McEwan’s brilliance as a stylist and surprise plotter finds a fitting subject in Nutshell…, which is Hamlet as told from inside the womb. Up there with his best.

A gripping tale is told with breathtaking skill, turbocharged with rage against the madness and despair of our modern world.

Nutshell is one of those books you sit down to read and don’t get up until you’ve finished. It is brilliantly executed and full of surprises; original, clever and witty. Simply a must-read

A book I couldn’t put down… brilliantly clever