Expertly evokes an urban atmosphere of paranoia and random destruction

Remarkable...horrifying and genuinely illuminating...essential reading for anyone who wants to understand Iraq, but also an incredibly powerful piece of fiction

Intoxicating, utterly thrilling. It is not an apology for terrorism, but a provocative explanation that will bring the Iraqi experience in terrifying detail to western bedside tables

Khadra draws the moods and motives of his village lad-turned-apprentice jihadi with engrossing power... lets you taste the sand, dust and blood - and most of all, the despair... In his own unsettling way, Yasmina Khadra offers the kind of truth that only well-wrought fiction tells

A sad and important book

One of the most important books to be published in Europe this year

Clearly, Holland has a deep knowledge of life in the 1930s and 40s, both civil and military, because every page oozes with authenticity ... a heartwarming homage to courage, honour, friendship and love ... Highly recommended, and five stars out fo five

This is literature at its very best: a book with the power to reveal the unimagined, so that one's life is set in a changed context. I urge you to read it

So powerful is this recreated past that you long to call Birdsong perfect

A powerful novel that is difficult to put down

My favourite novel of all time because it’s not just the most moving First World War story, it also has a wonderful romance

It broke my heart.

Magnificent. A classic that everyone should have read.

A sweeping historical drama, it’s also erotic, poignant and tear-inducing. I read it and wept buckets. I don’t think anything else Faulks has written before or since surpasses the brilliance of this one.

This is literature at its very best. A book with the power to reveal the unimagined, so that one’s life is set in a changed context. I urge you to read it.

While marked by poppy wearing and memorial ceremonies, the First World War is also sustained through family history, handed down from one generation to the next. No book better articulates the impact of this narrative than Stephen Faulks’ Birdsong.

A truly amazing read

I’d never read such descriptive literature, and couldn’t sleep at night for thinking about what I’d just read. His [Faulks] portrayal of terror on the battlefield is so powerful

My all-time favourite book