Sour grapes? Oddly not. The narrative tone here is peculiarly benign, as if to explain all these absurdities as helpfully as possible, and the effect is just hilarious. I read this novel right through the day I got my hands on it, laughing like a banshee’ David Sexton, Sunday Times; ‘Piercing and hilarious’ The Times, Best Books of 2021; ‘A book trade romp. The plot is amusingly preposterous’ The Spectator; ‘Deeply silly, frequently juvenile’ New Statesman; ‘No one in the publishing industry escapes a brutal skewering in this laugh-out-loud satire. I loved it’ Sara Lawrence, Daily Mail; ‘The funniest book since Cold Comfort Farm’ Julie Burchill; ‘A rollicking satire of publishing, writers and book festivals. As broad as the Atlantic but filled with zingers’ Ian Rankin; ‘Dan Rhodes is a true original’ Hilary Mantel; ‘Dan Rhodes is totally sick and brilliant in all the right ways’ Douglas Coupland; ‘Dan Rhodes is one of England’s greatest purveyors of eccentric comedies’ John Self, The Times