[An] interdisciplinary masterpiece.

If you read one book about contemporary politics this year, make it this one. William Davies is as acute and accurate on the shifts we are enduring as on the deep roots behind contemporary thinking (or not thinking, I should add).

The roots of our current anxieties are traced in [Nervous States,] an absorbing book fizzing with ideas… Davies is a wonderfully alert and nimble guide and his absorbing and edgy book will help us feel our way to a better future.

Wide-ranging yet brilliantly astute… Davies is a wild and surprising thinker who also happens to be an elegant writer — a wonderful and eminently readable combination. Nervous States covers 400 years of intellectual history, technological innovation and economic development, seamlessly weaving in such disparate intellects as Carl von Clausewitz, Friedrich von Hayek and Hannah Arendt.

We should all read William Davies’s Nervous States, a concise, penetrating exploration of the role played by negative emotions in our recent politics and culture

What makes Nervous States such a fascinating read... is that it is a slickly written and timely intervention in an era when feelings have undoubtedly become more powerful than facts.

An insightful and well-written book that explores the deep roots of the current crisis of expertise. The scientific community has been founded on the basis of separating reason from feeling. But now science itself has exposed this separation as an untenable myth. So where do we go from here?

A useful guide to our times… Nervous States makes a compelling case for paying more attention to the role of feelings, alongside that of reason, in modern life.

These are sparkling insights… [Nervous States] is an ambitious book with plenty to commend it.

[Davies] offers a penetrating analysis of 21st-century politics and culture… A fresh, astute examination of current events and urgent challenges.

An excavation of our age of anxiety, William Davies convincingly argues that declining trust in the authority of experts and the expanding mechanisms of disinformation have produced a world where emotions rule. From the connection between populism and bodily pain to the effects of Mark Zuckerberg’s “attention economy”, this book nimbly draws on the disparate threads of our current time.

[An] alarming but excellent book… a thoughtful analysis.

A book that thinks seriously and deeply about our modern predicament.

Illuminating about the frankly alarming condition of our politics, Nervous States describes how emotion took over from reason in contemporary populism

Engrossing.

Brilliant.

Davies, a rising star in the world of political thought, has written a much-needed book that provides an original explanatory framework for our current predicament - Brexit and Trump included.

William Davies brilliantly explains that we can no longer sensibly look for hope in ever more technological achievements, especially those that subjugate nature to our will. As our times slow down we have to confront our fears, our pain and our resentment. We have to redefine hope.

[Nervous States] does a great job of revealing fear’s capacity to mobilise people… [and serves] also as a stepping stone from which to approach the future.

[An] impressively wide-ranging and imaginative analysis gives us a deeper understanding of the gap between fact and popular perception.

Both compelling and creative.

Wide-ranging and ambitious.

Davies’s account is full of acute observations.

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