RaveThe Guardian (UK)The readability and economy of Reade’s book is all the more impressive given the sheer amount of information on which his account relies ... The finest and most difficult balance that Reade successfully strikes is between lauding Milton as a rich resource for those in search of inspiration and of freedom, and recognising the abhorrent characteristics of his imagination that have made him amenable to his more repulsive interpreters.
Jamel Brinkley
RaveThe Guardian (UK)An extraordinary gathering of stories that confirms Brinkley’s place among the most moving, compelling and virtuosic practitioners of the short form ... What seems above all to define the particular brilliance of Brinkley’s artistry with the short form... is his ceaseless conjuring of the small groupings that crystallise the predicaments and joys, the folds and the creases, of contemporary life, and Black American life in particular.
Benjamin Balint
RaveThe Observer (UK)Balint does a fine job of capturing Schulz’s life and his world before the war, his deeply peculiar mind and the fascinating figures in whose orbit he moved ... At times he veers into unhelpful psychologising ... Ultimately, however, Balint has more than just Schulz’s life and works in view, and his book begins and ends with the events from which Schulz’s contemporary reputation has become inseparable.
