'Eloquently captures the atmosphere of place and period... Schaeffer describes both the pleasures and the occasional torments of childhood with charm and humour...the warmth of characterisation is matched by the novel's rich evocation of Italian life, and the accuracy with which it captures the nuances of 1960s manners'

'Evocative, funny and wonderfully observed, reading this book is a holiday in itself'

'Not since Huck Finn has American literature been graced with a character as irresistible as Calvin Dort Becker'

'Poignant and hilarious...by turns, sentimental, celebratory, evocative and very funny'

'Beautifully written with great insight and unselfconscious humour'

One of the most extraordinary novels you are likely to read for quite some time...touching, absolutely fascinating.

When you open this book you can feel the grandmother’s breath and hear the hidden voices of the women of the Evenki tribe of northeast China – a moving story told by a great Chinese writer

Enthrallingly evoked

[A] remarkable story…. Zijian’s language is infused with natural images of her native China

How would Socrates get on in 21st century Britain? This is the question at the heart of Samantha Harvey's ambitious second novel

The beauty of the intense plot lies in its economy. The novel is so finely tuned, it is hard to find any passage where she is not fully in control. No matter how dramatic the events she describes, they never drown the ideas being discussed.

Harvey's talent is in the details of both characters and relationships that seem trivial but are telling ... Harvey is a master of language, adept at both Wildean one-liners ... and more profound expression

In this Socrates-like story Samantha Harvey examines a dramatic sibling relationship whilst questioning the place of philosophy in modern life

Lovely observations on a sibling relationship

Graceful and full of sharp observation and moments of understated pathos

Yan Lianke sees and describes his characters with great tenderness . . . this talented and sensitive writer exposes the absurdity of our time

An unconventional blur of fact and fiction, How Should a Person Be? is an engaging cocktail of memoir, novel and self-help guide

A candid collection of taped interviews and emails, random notes and daring exposition…fascinating

Provocative, funny and original

A serious work about authenticity, how to lead a moral life and accept one’s own ugliness

An exuberantly productive mess, filtered and reorganised after the fact...rather than working within a familiar structure, Heti has gone out to look for things that interest her and "put a fence around" whatever she finds

A sharp, witty exploration of relationships, art and celebrity culture

[Sheila Heti] has an appealing restlessness, a curiosity about new forms, and an attractive freedom from pretentiousness or cant…How Should a Person Be? offers a vital and funny picture of the excitements and longueurs of trying to be a young creator in a free, late-capitalist Western City…This talented writer may well have identified a central dialectic of twenty-first-century postmodern being

Funny…odd, original, and nearly unclassifiable…Sheila Heti does know something about how many of us, right now, experience the world, and she has gotten that knowledge down on paper, in a form unlike any other novel I can think of

Playful, funny... absolutely true

Sheila's clever, openhearted commentary will draw wry smiles from readers empathetic to modern life's trials and tribulations

Amusing and original