Old Filth-like, except older. Leave it to a woman to face the inevitable head-on and chin-up, and by that, I mean Taylor. Sadly funny and wittily depressing.

Hilarious and gruesome and highly informational (read all about cholera) and extremely moving and, as one reviewer wrote, "important." Part of his Empire Trilogy, this is JG Farrell's view of the Brrritish in India and it's not hard to tell whose side he's on. Don't miss the part about the cockchafers. Don't miss the part about the heat...well, you can't. Don't miss it. As an aside: someone once said that the reason that (at one time) the sun never set on the British Empire is because of two drinks: tea (you have to boil the water to make it) and gin & tonics (the tonic has quinine).

Really excellent. A marvelous and muscle-ey debut resulting in a sort of iron poetry. Read it for the language; read it for the very compelling story; read it because it's the whole enchilada: visceral and intense and like, important. It reminded me--for its grit--a little of The Orphan Master's Son.

Remarkable. As full of literary references as the Library of Congress. I read it obsessively. He's a master-architect: this novel is like a shotgun house in that once you're in it, you can't stop going til you get out. His vision of what sort of world we've made for ourselves is absolutely clear and crystalline and horrid. I don't care for the fantastical all that much unless it's perfect; in this case, I followed him through the murky parts because of the less murky parts. He's a genius, this guy; he's our (well, the Brits') Murakami and while for me, de Zoet is the best of the best, The Bone Clocks will appeal to all his fans especially those Cloud Atlasers out there.

Too bad this is out of print. I don't read many thrillers but this is psychologically juicy and deliciously scary.