Wolf Hall appears to be one of those novels that polarizes its readers — either they love it, or they really, really do not. I loved it, for a few different reasons

I got the feeling reading Ready Player One that my memories were being used to sell me something that couldn’t sell itself

Swamplandia! is brilliant — a gorgeous fantasia that flirts with magical realism without ever letting its feet drift too far from the ground

Telex from Cuba is that rare novel with a true sense of place; it drips with atmosphere and period detail

A fun, compulsively readable adventure story, but one that fails to shake free of the burdens of its genre

The question of where the boundary between the public and the private should be drawn deserves a great novel to help us work through it. The Circle is not that novel

The Paying Guests is a very, very good book. In fact, it’s the best novel I’ve read in quite some time

Sometimes all the reviews are wrong. This is one of those times

Not quite as good as Cloud Atlas, but still a great read

“Gone Girl” starts as a smart, insightful novel, but turns into an explosion at a paperback factory

Not as bad as you’ve heard, not as good as you’d like