7,488 book reviews and counting...

"This is a most strange and tormented story, part psychoanalytic confession and part meditation on man’s cruel relationship with nature..."

"There are no happy endings in this nastily funny phantasmagoria set in a warped version of England..."

"On Swift Horses is worth reading for the poetry alone..."

"Handke’s politics trivialise Bosnian suffering, yet his writing also gives words to the voiceless ordeals long considered too mundane for literature..."

"In our hyper-satirical age, Eggers’ proposal is just too modest..."

"Grandmothers makes for absorbing, undemanding reading..."

"This lightly sketched tale moves towards an inevitable conclusion ..."

"for the most part he writes with wonderful delicacy and multiplicity..."

"An extraordinary collection of surreal tales takes in time travel, molluscs and monks..."

"a profound tale of certain entropy..."

"Astonishing... a landmark epic..."

"“This Is Happiness” is as full of detours and backward glances as it is of forward motion..."

"(a) darkly transcendent novel filled with phantasmagoric visions, body horror and tortured beings traversing a blasted desert hellscape..."

"The strength of O’Brien’s work, apart from lyricism, has always been its reliable specificity...."

"feels at once more real – because less cartoony – and more sentimental than her earlier books..."

"There are many things in The Topeka School that are more eloquent than words..."

"the main reason to read Sudden Traveller is simply to bask in Hall’s formidable, righteous language..."

" a shrewd, skilful tale of loneliness, the search for meaning and a place in the world, and the problems of truly relating to another human being..."

"There’s something pleasurable and astute to be found on every page...."

"Here really is a world, thrillingly imagined and under the surface entirely like our own..."

"Intriguing debut about life as a Ghanaian immigrant..."

"there is a warmth and a humanity in Aciman’s prose that enraptures with its slow, easy embrace..."

"Wartime Paris is lovingly depicted: the smell of wet leaves, the taste of chicory coffee, the flics in their rain capes, a loaded glance across a café. Most of all, the sense of menace...."

"Buenos Aires in the 1960s, home to remnants of the Third Reich in exile, is brought chillingly to life..."

"Andrew Michael Hurley returns to a strange but familiar terrain..."

" the attempts to modernise the series with subtle nods to modern popular culture are intriguing..."

"these are books that journey deep into the darkest reaches of human experience and return, fatally wounded, but still eloquent..."

"a clear-eyed and frequently very funny satire on psychogeography’s false solaces..."

"A story can do and be whatever it wants, this collection seems to be saying..."

"Through her powerful command of language, she eases the reader into her nightmarish fairytale..."

"a variety of authors have created marvellous and menacing new monsters..."

"Despite the novel’s wit and sharpness, there is a fundamentally serious point to it, and not just about body dysmorphia and unrealistic expectations..."

"stories of financial misfortune and emotional misunderstandings..."

"Buenos Aires in the 1960s, home to remnants of the Third Reich in exile, is brought chillingly to life..."

"Wartime Paris is lovingly depicted: the smell of wet leaves, the taste of chicory coffee, the flics in their rain capes, a loaded glance across a café. Most of all, the sense of menace...."

"Intensely human characters, a cracking storyline and vivid scene-setting make The Last Hunt one of Meyer’s best...."

" the attempts to modernise the series with subtle nods to modern popular culture are intriguing..."

"... atmospheric, clever, witty and amusing. If I were only allowed to read one crime series again it would be that of Donna Leon...."

"Penny keeps the reader guessing who did what to the very end...."

"there is a surprising lack of narrative tension, the internal inconsistencies are confounding and we have guessed the denouement long before it arrives..."

"keeps the reader guessing..."

"This lean, fast-paced action thriller has the feel of Taken set in the world of Sons of Anarchy...."

"a highly original, electrifying read..."

"As always, Child gets a charge out of flaunting Reacher’s impressive build, but he’s also unafraid to show his hero’s softer side..."

"A tale of Russian intrigue in Britain’s mess..."

"Lucy Foley's gripping thriller stays chilling to the final page..."

"Bringing together four crime writers to write one thriller could be a disaster. But in the case of The Understudy, this quartet pull it off with aplomb..."

"Nicci French is back to what she does best..."

"At the heart of The Memory Police, Yoko Ogawa’s masterful 1994 novel, now published in English in Stephen Snyder’s lucid and elegant translation, is the way that, once lost, things get forgotten..."

"expertise is clear throughout... his marriage of fact and fiction is masterly..."

"While the plots of many Nordic noir writers are turning ever more grim, Finland’s Antti Tuomainen opts these days for a wittier, lighter touch..."

"this is a traditional mystery of the best sort..."

"this is Grisham at his passionate best, conveying every ounce of his anger at the corruption behind the law..."

"– a near-perfect ghost story..."

"a finely written book, evocative and moving in its exploration of how we live now, without being maudlin or sentimental..."

"the best so far of an unmissable series..."

"Intensely human characters, a cracking storyline and vivid scene-setting make The Last Hunt one of Meyer’s best...."

"Cruz Smith at his best: ace storytelling with dry, laconic dialogue and a crumpled but courageous hero...."

" the attempts to modernise the series with subtle nods to modern popular culture are intriguing..."

"Through her powerful command of language, she eases the reader into her nightmarish fairytale..."

"wonderful twists and turns which single out Upson as a talented author of historical crime..."

"This is a spectacular debut...."

"Gripping, twisty and immensely satisfying, this confirms Blok’s talent...."

"there is a surprising lack of narrative tension, the internal inconsistencies are confounding and we have guessed the denouement long before it arrives..."

"Penny keeps the reader guessing who did what to the very end...."

"Lynne Truss is clearly having a great time — and so does the reader. There is a smile, giggle or guffaw on every page...."

"... atmospheric, clever, witty and amusing. If I were only allowed to read one crime series again it would be that of Donna Leon...."

"a brilliant change of pace..."

"keeps the reader guessing..."

"a highly original, electrifying read..."

"This lean, fast-paced action thriller has the feel of Taken set in the world of Sons of Anarchy...."

"Lucy Foley's gripping thriller stays chilling to the final page..."

" the real pleasure in this slice of Scandi noir is the insight it gives into the strange cocktail of claustrophobia and remoteness that is life in Greenland..."

"This is an intense, oppressive debut, with its dark climax sudden and shocking in its plausibility..."

"Bringing together four crime writers to write one thriller could be a disaster. But in the case of The Understudy, this quartet pull it off with aplomb..."

"Nicci French is back to what she does best..."

"While the plots of many Nordic noir writers are turning ever more grim, Finland’s Antti Tuomainen opts these days for a wittier, lighter touch..."

"Pullman nods to the refugee crisis and the state of democracy in his masterly second tale in the Book of Dust series..."

"this is a traditional mystery of the best sort..."

"Oates manages the tension and the profoundly eerie atmosphere with precision and economy. But it is the prose that lifts the spirit with its poetry...."

"I was a big fan of Miller's debut, the Booker-shortlisted Snowdrops. This, his second novel, is set in Ukraine at the time of the Orange Revolution, and in the present day..."

"This lightly sketched tale moves towards an inevitable conclusion ..."

"the best so far of an unmissable series..."

"Astonishing... a landmark epic..."

"Wartime Paris is lovingly depicted: the smell of wet leaves, the taste of chicory coffee, the flics in their rain capes, a loaded glance across a café. Most of all, the sense of menace...."

"much of the joy of The Tenth Muse derives from Chung’s writing, which is unadorned but expressive, shot through with moments of sparse lyricism..."

"there is a surprising lack of narrative tension, the internal inconsistencies are confounding and we have guessed the denouement long before it arrives..."

"a brilliant change of pace..."

"compelling fictional reworking of George Eliot’s later life..."

"Gun Island is a novel about migration – as all climate fiction must be..."

"expertise is clear throughout... his marriage of fact and fiction is masterly..."

"a masterful naval gazer..."

"The Secrets We Kept is set to be a publishing phenomenon; but more importantly, it is a thoroughly enjoyable read..."

"an unsettling mass of contradictions..."

"a shorter book might have given this story so much more power...."

"Tracy Chevalier excels at writing about the ordinary human characters who find themselves accidentally at the centre of history...."

"action-packed, densely plotted read..."

"There are many brilliant passages in the novel ..."

"If you liked A Woman in Black, you'll love this utterly gripping and atmospheric book..."

"An intriguing and nostalgic read..."

"[W]hile one may judge that the novel as a whole doesn’t work, never becoming a complete and credible thing, it is rich in individual delight..."

"an enjoyably overwrought exercise in dark melodrama...."

"A curious historical experiment from 1797 to get a man to live alone underground for seven years is spun out into a novel..."

"Astonishing... a landmark epic..."

"Misfit women rule in a beguiling tale of unlikely love..."

"A sharp intelligence beneath the romantic sensibility makes the less convincing story elements almost forgivable..."

"This novel is talky, smart, anarchic and quite sexy. You begin to linger on those three s’s when you speak the title aloud..."

"A warm-hearted witty debut about finding friendship where you least expect it..."

"I adored this uplifting story about hope and love..."

"an enjoyably overwrought exercise in dark melodrama...."

"Can she reconcile her past in this riveting read?..."

"a fascinating account..."

"funny and beautifully written..."

"An unmissable, multi-layered read..."

"Love and humour are found at the end of the road for a pair of elderly protagonists..."

"a harrowing and a bewitching adventure..."

"the pleasure of this novel is in the quirky characters, the effervescent writing and the comedy in just about every line..."

"enthralling..."

"(a) darkly transcendent novel filled with phantasmagoric visions, body horror and tortured beings traversing a blasted desert hellscape..."

"Here really is a world, thrillingly imagined and under the surface entirely like our own..."

"a stunning conclusion to a trilogy that expands our understanding of what science fiction can do...."

"Unputdownable and often thought-provoking...."

"the novel is one long caper..."

"a finely written book, evocative and moving in its exploration of how we live now, without being maudlin or sentimental..."

"Beside its predictably fine dialogue, the book’s strengths include the Stephen King-like way humour is interwoven with horror and Koepp’s enthralling conjuring of the fungus, which becomes as vivid as its human co-leads..."

"Ted Chiang's ingenious experiments lead readers back to the future..."

"Neal Stephenson’s sequel to Reamde sees reality augmented and humanity absorbed..."

"a fictional mathematical discovery is placed in the past and its ripple effects are carried forward..."

"A dystopian thriller that wears its smartness on its sleeve..."

"Two environmentally dystopian visions of a flooded earth..."

"detailed depiction of scientists diligently going about their work..."

"(a) darkly transcendent novel filled with phantasmagoric visions, body horror and tortured beings traversing a blasted desert hellscape..."

"Artist Stanley Donwood joins nature writer Robert Macfarlane to evoke a haunting coastline..."

"Erin Morgenstern’s fiction radiates with the excitement of someone discovering a magical world within the pages of a book. ..."

"beautifully illustrated by the Croatian artist Tomislav Tomic..."

"Although crammed with characters and detail, the intricately woven story never slackens its merciless grip ..."

"the best one so far..."

"[a] devilish satire..."

"a genuinely new take on the Robin Hood tales..."

"A novel where special coffins are required to keep the dead from rising, and river gods vandalise jetskis could be irritating. But here the tricks pay off..."

"a richly picaresque adventure..."

"[a] striking account of growing up gay in Syria..."

"Fabulous elements are mixed with everyday life and references to Brexit in an intriguing mother-daughter story about origins..."

"reassert[ing] that black readers are as capable of having broad, varied, multifaceted interests as anyone else...."

"the narrative builds like a tidal wave ..."

"reading it can often be a bit of a slog, to be frank..."

"Andrew Michael Hurley returns to a strange but familiar terrain..."

"a blunt, forceful poetry, entirely suited to a tale – and, in fairytale, a genre – that blends a catalogue of dangers with a celebration of female agency..."

"– a near-perfect ghost story..."

"Horrendously read-able, deliciously sickening and elegantly twisted, Joe Hill’s new collection of stories range from elegiac pulp to full-on horror...."

"Some readers might find [the authorial interjections] jarring; to others, it might feel like authorial over-sharing. In the end though, I think Logan pulls it off...."

"This novel is talky, smart, anarchic and quite sexy. You begin to linger on those three s’s when you speak the title aloud..."

"If you liked A Woman in Black, you'll love this utterly gripping and atmospheric book..."

"an enjoyably overwrought exercise in dark melodrama...."

"Innovative and unsettling debut novel..."

"original and engrossing... brilliant..."

"Zombies hunt for living flesh in an Ireland destroyed by ‘the Emergency’ … but does this debut bring anything new to the dystopian genre?..."

"this book is an artefact in itself – a tactile, mysterious and seductive one..."

" a beloved genius of storytelling and illustration..."

"Rusty Brown is a human document of rare richness..."

"a restrained, poignant graphic novel..."

"This affecting account of family life features dreams of monsters, classroom japes – and a father hooked on heroin..."

"a huge year for the Wimpy Kid comes to a close with Greg's 14th adventure...."

"a masterpiece..."

" There is...real daring here, as well as empathy and imagination..."

"this flawless performance is captivating..."

"devilishly good..."

"it certainly is a wild ride..."

"a sweet romance that explores autism..."

"One admires Slimani's bravery in creating a deeply unsympathetic character ..."