Tolstoy’s imagined world is recreated on air brilliantly by the extraordinary cast

The cast is extraordinary, but pre-eminent is Harriet Walter in a masterclass of apparently effortless radio acting

The funniest new writer to arrive in years

The one problem with reviewing Stibbe is that I just want to quote entire pages: it's all so brilliant. She captures exactly what it's like to be a teenager, with all its contradictions, confusions, anxieties and ambitions.

There is a laugh out loud moment in every chapter. Paradise Lodge brilliantly captures the internal panic of a teenager

A touch of Holden Caulfield in 1970s Leicestershire... I wouldn't mind fetching up at Paradise Lodge when my time comes: at least we'd all share a laugh, a hug and a terrible cup of tea before the dying of the light.

There is never a dull moment in this lively, sensitive, roaringly funny tale

Stibbe looks at another chapter of her life through the prism of her trademark deadpan, acutely observed humour

Irreverent, warm and hugely entertaining

The whole book surprises and impresses... I'm not surprised to see that Stibbe's writing has been compared to Jane Austen's

Stibbe is a terrific writer with a gift for sharp dialogue

Laugh-out-loud funny and full of spot-on 1970s details

Stibbe is herself becoming a worthy successor to Pym, that peerless chronicler of the melancholy pleasures and small struggles of 20th-century English life on the sort of days when, as Lizzie puts it, "there was nothing for lunch except ginger cake and tins of marrowfat peas

Winsomely naïve yet confident

Witty and thoroughly chortle inducing

A dollop of nostalgia and very British humour

Warm, funny story