These dark, gritty, crime stories set in the mean streets of modern Britain - in Soho, Sheffield, Nottingham - and peopled by gangsters, cops, drug addicts and prostitutes . . . are compelling

Is there a better . . . writer around than Harvey? Probably not

A ceaselessly fresh and adorable body of work ... exasperation made poetry

Kingsley Amis was a big, humane novelist, interested in all manner of people very unlike himself

There’s a whiskey-gargling swagger to [Frank Bill’s] Cormac McCarthy-style prose, and each noir tale is savagely addictive.

Good Lord, where in the hell did this guy come from? Hits as hard as an ax handle to the side of the head after you've snorted a nose full of battery acid and eaten a live rattlesnake for breakfast. Seriously, I'm warning you in advance: take your heart medication and strap yourself to your bar stool for one of the wildest damn rides you're ever going to take inside a book.

Dark, grim, and achingly beautiful. Frank Bill is one of the most original and compelling voices in this new generation of crime writers.

Some serious hillbilly-noir that had my ears ringing by the end. Open the first page... and duck.

A triumph...certain to seal her reputation as our contemporary Chekhov

Superlative...She distills a novel's worth of dramatic events into a story of 20 pages

These astonishing stories remind us, yet again, of the literary miracles Alice Munro continues to perform

Goosebumpingly unforgettable

Runaway may well be the synthesizing work of one of literature's keenest investigators into the human soul

The great Alice Munro proves again why short story writers bow down to her

[Munro] really is the short story writer to beat... Munro has always been fascinated by those moments that tilt our world on its axis, as though the world really does turn on a kiss, but her brilliance lies in the psychological way that she convinces us of that fact

In crystalline prose, she illuminates her characters' hopes and longings

[Munro] has been compared to Chekhov and I'm only being slightly tongue in cheek when I say that the honour is entirely his. Dear Life is comprised of 13 rich and startling stories, a must read

I haven’t even finished all of Dear Life, but Alice Munro’s stories have lived with me for such a long time and with such quiet passion that I’m barely capable of explaining why

[Munro’s] talent is formidable but she has never been self-seeking: her short stories have a subtle, covert brilliance

These stories won’t give you easy moral comfort, but will stretch you. They’re moral in that they name things as they are

Dear Life is a dazzling portrait of ordinary existence which illustrates how seemingly insignificant meetings and moments can have a monumental impact

This collection is beautiful; full of pure, simple truths that linger long in the mind