Lives of the Novelists: A History of Fiction in 294 Lives - Tapa dura

The fruit of a truly staggering amount of reading - the culmination of half a century's engagement with fiction... it appeals as a font of erudition, into which one can dip congenially... Lives of the Novelists abounds with fascinating characters, many of them worth reclaiming from obscurity... witty and humane... The most gratifying effect of this peculiar but rather wonderful book is that it makes you want to slink off and ransack a well-stocked library. (Henry Hitchings FT 2011-10-29)

Sutherland is perect for this job - all pith and wit... He has made a tricky job look easy. (Bridget Hourican The Dubliner 2011-10-13)

The funniest book I've read all year... it's a riot... Novelists in Professor Sutherland's hands are, above all, lively company... Sutherland himself is a very distinctive literary critic... His throwaway lines are born of a deep knowledge of his subject, and the best combine a sharp aperçu with picaresque expression. (Michael Prodger Evening Standard 2011-11-10)

Sutherland is good value: provocative, polymathic and well practised in the art of literary criticism. He has made an eclectic, certainly idiosyncratic, selection of nigh on 300 international novelists writing in English over near enough the past 400 years... What matters most in a book such as this is not just the critical judgment, but the critical voice. Sutherland's is conversational and confidential, concise and confident. (Iain Finlayson Times 2011-12-19)

Pithy quotes and witty moments (Jonathan Bate Sunday Telegraph 2011-11-20)

A modern take on a reassuringly ancient format... neatly interweaves stories of the lives of writers with quirky insights into their work... highly readable (Anne McElvoy New Statesman 2011-11-21)

FT Books of the Year: The fruit of decades of reading and research... A witty, and enjoyably wide-ranging book. (Carl Wilkinson FT 2011-11-26)

hugely enjoyable... Sutherland's brief lives display the soul of wit - whose essence is to encompass the unexpected... (he has) magnificent and infectious enthusiasm for the books he reads.
It is enthusiasm, indeed, that informs the book...

The Lives of the Novelists is partly a literary curiosity cabinet, eccentric and beguiling...

For those modern women of today whose preferred drug is fiction, I heartily endorse the prescriptions of Professor Sutherland.

(Caroline Moore Spectator 2011-12-01)

Delightful for dipping and discovery. (Lisa Hilton Independent on Sunday 2011-12-11)

A great work of scholarship that rarely feels like it. It's just for pleasure. (James Medd Word 2011-12-01)