A brilliant wacky ideas-monger

A cool writer, at once throwaway and passionate and very funny

One of the 20th century's finest humorists and humanists, a writer who has inherited HG Wells's visionary imagination and his gift for social commentary

Simon Kernick uses every trick in the book to keep the action breakneck.

From the first line, Simon Kernick knows how to get a thriller shifting, and he doesn't let up until the very last

Love, sex, art, literature, wars, religion, wine, spirit, the steam engine and, yes, Eurostar: they are all there. All the emotions, attitudes, pursuits and endeavours that typically seem to link Britain to France feature in the first collection of short stories by Julian Barnes...A delightful book

Deeply affecting chamber piece…

Engaging collection… Beautiful, spare prose

Presents us...with a complex and melancholic vision of people stuggling to transcend their individuality for the sake of mundanely idealistic goals

All Israeli life is here, rendered in loving detail

This poignant, often heartbreaking, collection evocatively captures life in a kibbutz

Russell's descriptions are well thought out, and she heightens all of the senses, often bringing taste, touch, sight and smell into her stories

Hilarious... Dazzling... Exhilarating

A joy of a collection

What makes Russell's writing a cut above the rest is her fresh and inventive prose... Even [her] less effective narratives are hard to forget

Loneliness and mortality have never had such a fun twist

As subtle as the colour of Kitsune's silk

Russell is an amazing storyteller, and this book certainly whets the appetite for her next offering

Kevin Barry…isn’t sparing with his powers. Even his throwaway lines are keepers… But what makes this book such a satisfying read is that his memorable sentence-writing is in the service of well-constructed, moving stories

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