History of the Rain: Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2014 - Rilegato

This is an important new book and, without spoiling the riveting last chapter next Friday, the rewards increase tenfold the further into the story one gets (Book at Bedtime, Radio Times)

A surge of language, beautiful and enchanting, a novel that weaves a love of literature into its own moving tale (Guardian)

Extremely moving, poignantly capturing Ruth's doomed childhood relationship with her twin brother. By the final chapter I was weeping (Sunday Times)

The Anne Enright award for the Irish novel most guaranteed to make you cry . Niall Williams wins this year's award on the strength of his title alone . Suffused with warmth and humour (Independent on Sunday)

A rambling, soft-hearted Irish family saga stuffed with eccentricity, literature, anecdotes, mythology, humour and heartbreak from the author of Four Letters of Love (Kirkus)

Williams' poetic prose meanders from page to page and becomes one with her voice in a poignant story about family, identity, love and loss, pain, faith and hope (Monocle)

Extremely funny and clever, and packed with beautiful imagery. This is a brave and wildly imaginative novel, that certainly stands out in a genre of its own (Western Mail)

A celebration of books, love and the healing power of the imagination (Irish Independent)

Dazzling . Paragraph after paragraph begs you to stop and reread it, to relish the lilt of it with your inner ear . History of the Rain has the heft of a bigger book, that extra brainy oomph that flatters the juries of lit comps and nailed it a place on this year's Man Booker longlist. This is not boil-in-the-bag Irish stew, it is your rich, slow-simmered casserole of a novel, and Williams has the confidence to give his themes the time that they need to develop the full flavour . It's satisfying entertainment for all (The Times)

Pure eccentric entertainment . The novel is suffused with this otherworldliness while being rooted in the everyday (Guardian)