Truly mind-expanding… Ultra-topical… Harari’s big selling point [is] the ambition and breadth of his work, smashing together unexpected ideas into dazzling observations.

There is surely no one alive who is better at explaining our world than Yuval Noah Harari - he is the lecturer we all wish we’d had at university. Reading this book, I must have interrupted my partner a hundred times to pass on fascinating things I’d just read. Harari has done it again - 21 Lessons is, simply put, a crucial book.

Erudite, illuminating, vivid. [Harari’s] lessons suggest new ways of thinking about current problems… a splendid, sobering, stirring call to arms.

Fascinating… compelling… [Harari] has teed up a crucial global conversation about how to take on the problems of the 21st century.

The great thinker of our age.

Harari… is a rare voice of calm reassurance, slicing through the chaos and uncertainty of the modern age.

Harari thrills his readers because he addresses the biggest possible topics with confidence and brio. Compared with the subjects he tackles, anything else we might read looks piffling and parochial.

Harari’s genius at weaving together insights from different disciplines, ranging from ancient history to neuroscience to philosophy to artificial intelligence, has enabled him to respond to the clamour to understand where we have come from and where we might be heading… 21 Lessons is lit up by flashes of intellectual adventure and literary verve.

Modern life can seem overwhelming. Fortunately, Yuval Noah Harari's new book, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, is on hand to guide us through it. Poolside reading with purpose.

[Harari’s] purpose is to reveal the hard-learned lessons we have all already encountered this century… the persuasiveness of Harari’s philosophical analysis, and the engaging quality of his writing, is hard to deny.

More comprehensible [than Sapiens and Homo Deus]... showing you things you thought you knew about in a completely new way… I find Harari’s writing exhilarating.

Written in the author’s trademark lucid prose, the book makes difficult concept comprehensible, and is very much a work for our times… 21 Lessons absorbs from start to finish.

A terrific primer on where we are now and where we might be heading… Harari is a superb global cartographer, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is a lucid and essential read.

Bound to be one of the biggest books of the autumn... Exhilarating… compulsively readable and with almost every page providing something juicy to chew on.

Intelligent, lucid and refreshingly unpretentious.

The book contains many gems… compelling… accompany the author as he peers fascinatingly into the future.

Harari’s purpose is admirable. He wishes to empower ordinary people with his clear thinking.

It feels urgent and necessary, as though it is capturing a crucial moment in time… It is a direct call to action and probably the most genuinely impactful of all three Harari books.

I’m predicting that 21 Lessons for the 21st Century will complete a Harari hat-trick of classics… The clarity of Harari's vision is astonishing... thanks to him, the world makes better sense to many more of us.

Compelling reading.

This is an important book.

21 Lessons is another extremely readable volume [from Harari].

With Harari's incise vision and measured prose this is a book to convert those dormant anxieties and Evening-News-induced insomnia into a deeper, more empowered comprehension.

Harari effortlessly jumps between diverse topics.

A thought-provoking, provocative, informative, terrifying, fact-filled series of essays which get the reader thinking, worrying and hoping.

Harari essentially takes the pulse of society today and worldwide.

[Harari] is a rare voice of calm reassurance, slicing through chaos.

Vividly written and spiked with references to Monty Python and The Lion King, Harari’s essays are thought-provoking and accessible

A rollercoaster philosophical review of where we find ourselves today… 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is an absorbing, realistic, stark, yet hopeful book.

A bold and provocative read that expands one's frame of mind on the present-day world as we know it with the author's unique perceptions.

If there are people around to write history books in the future, they will look back at the @ExtinctionR protestors and think they were the sanest people of our time. Read The Uninhabitable Earth by @dwallacewells if you don't know why.

If we don't want our grandchildren to curse us, we had better read this book.

David Wallace-Wells argues that the impacts of climate change will much graver than most people realize, and he's right. The Uninhabitable Earth is a timely and provocative work.

Trigger warning: when scientists conclude that yesterday's worst-case scenario for global warming is probably unwarranted optimism, it's time to ask Scotty to beam you up. At least that was my reaction upon finishing Wallace-Wells' brilliant and unsparing analysis of a nightmare that is no longer a distant future but our chaotic, burning present.

A lucid and thorough description of our unprecedented crisis, and of the mechanisms of denial with which we seek to avoid its fullest recognition.

Brilliant at the futility of human action.

A masterpiece of operatic proportions … What Powers means to explore is a sense of how we become who we are, individually and collectively, and our responsibility to the planet and to ourselves … A magnificent achievement: a novel that is, by turns, both optimistic and fatalistic, idealistic without being naïve.

His masterpiece.

You will careen through this book. The prose is driven. You don’t really get to draw breath … The writing is steel-edged, laser-sharp when Richard Powers wants it to be. When he sets out to nail meaning, it’s done. There are sentences you return to and wonder at.

This walk through the woods via words is a passionate paean to the natural world that prompts us to appreciate afresh our place on the planet.

[I]t’s huge, it’s exciting, it’s wondrous … This really deserves to be read.

The Overstory is a book you learn from.

Dazzlingly written… Among the best novels I’ve read this decade… Despite its deep-time perspective, it could hardly be more of-the-moment

A beautiful novel about humans reconnecting with nature in a fascinatingly, inventive world with colourful, rich characters, it will rekindle your love for nature

An intriguing, powerful book

Absolutely blown away by this epic, heartbreaking novel about us and trees

This extraordinary novel transformed my view of nature. Never again will I pass great tree without offering a quiet but heartfelt incantation of thanks, gratitude and wonder

A sweeping novel that skilfully intertwines many different stories of trees and people to create a paean to the hidden power and vital importance of the natural world

Absorbing, thought-provoking and more than enough incentive to embrace your inner tree-hugger

The Overstory is filled with character and incident enough to engage anybody, but it's also filled with philosophy, science, poetry, and colour. It's a celebration of the world and humanity, but also tells of our coming doom. Perhaps above all it's a eulogy to trees. Eulogy is the right word because the novel celebrates the life, the beauty and wisdom of trees-but also their death. The novel also casts a cold-but loving-eye on humanity

The Overstory has the mix of science and fiction that I so love; it widens my understanding and respect for the creatures who share this planet

Stunning... It's been one of those rare books that has had a profound effect on me, and which has changed my perspective on life

Mind-boggling and visionary. The multi-stranded novel is a masterpiece in which science and poetry are deeply intertwined

A compelling read is that is near impossible to put down

The Overstory is a prescient novel that urges us to take responsibility for our actions

A masterpiece of storytelling at its very best. Powers weaves together science, poetry, nature and humanity so beautifully that it makes my heart ache and my mind fly

A wild and expansive novel, knitting together a glorious and diverse cast of characters, some of them human, some of them trees. I defy you not to be moved, and then angered about what we are doing to our planet and these glorious sentinels rooted upon it

My novel of the year was Richard Powers' masterpiece, The Overstory... it's a magnificent read

The Overstory by Richard Powers is likely the most beautiful book ever written about people and trees