Kirkus Star
THE KIRKUS STAR
Awarded to Books of Exceptional Merit

BROWSE BOOK REVIEWS




A.S. Byatt


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Cover art for RAGNAROK
FICTION
Released: Feb. 1, 2012

"Though the cadences are like those of a fairy tale, a narrative seen through the eyes of a child, the chilling conclusion is not."
A multilayered retelling of the end of the world from Norse mythology, framed by the award-winning British novelist's analysis of how myth relates to her own work. Read full book review >
Cover art for THE CHILDREN’S BOOK
FICTION
Released: Oct. 6, 2009

"Ambitious, accomplished and intelligent in the author's vintage manner."
Byatt (A Whistling Woman, 2002, etc.) encompasses the paradigm shift from Victorian to modern England in a sweeping tale of four families. Read full book review >
Cover art for LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF STORIES
FICTION
Released: May 2, 2004

"A stunning, altogether irresistible collection."
With painstaking precision, Booker-winner Byatt (A Whistling Woman, 2002, etc.) analyzes the frailty, impermanence, and disturbing complexity of the human body. Read full book review >
Cover art for A WHISTLING WOMAN
FICTION
Released: Dec. 17, 2002

"Not a perfect work, but an unarguably major one. Byatt's quartet is well worth the time and attention it demands."
The life of the mind and the confusions of the spirit confront one another to often telling effect in Byatt's lavishly orchestrated eighth novel. Read full book review >
Cover art for ON HISTORIES AND STORIES
NONFICTION
Released: March 1, 2001

"The overall effect is somewhat slight and rather disjointed, but not without attraction."
Seven essays by novelist Byatt (The Biographer's Tale, 2000, etc.), all ostensibly linked by the motifs of writing and reading fiction set in the past. Read full book review >
Cover art for THE BIOGRAPHER’S TALE
FICTION
Released: Jan. 24, 2000

"Not for Oprah's Book Club--but readers willing to be lectured will be suitably rewarded."
An academic who forsakes the realm of concepts and theories for the quotidian world of "things" is the unlikely--and quite likable--protagonist of Byatt's formidably learned latest, which echoes rather loudly her Booker Prize–winning Possession (1999). Read full book review >
Cover art for ELEMENTALS
FICTION
Released: May 1, 1999

"An often enchanting further display of Byatt's fluent style and far-reaching imagination."
Six rather arbitrarily linked stories (which allegedly explore various "extremes and polarities") from the rococo stylist whose best fiction includes Booker Prize—winning Possession (1990) and the (rather similar) story collection The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye (1997). Read full book review >
Cover art for THE DJINN IN THE NIGHTINGALE'S EYE
FICTION
Released: Nov. 1, 1997

 Four short fairy tales with a contemporary edge, and one novella-length tale that brilliantly transforms a story of middle- age angst into a celebration of serendipity and sex. Read full book review >
Cover art for IMAGINING CHARACTERS
NONFICTION
Released: Sept. 17, 1997

"Byatt and Sodre attempt to bring out the knowledge that resides in art alone."
 Two discriminating readers invite us to listen in on seven conversations about six important novels by women. Read full book review >
Cover art for BABEL TOWER
FICTION
Released: May 1, 1996

"Not Byatt's best."
 An ambitious, intelligent work that, while aiming to get Britain's swinging '60s down pat, unfortunately scants the usual fictional elements, putting in their place a mordant and always perceptive historical critique. Read full book review >
Cover art for THE MATISSE STORIES
FICTION
Released: April 1, 1995

"Byatt at her accessible—if rather brief—best."
 Inspired by Matisse paintings, these three splendid stories (two have appeared in the New Yorker) pay homage to the artist as they offer equally memorable verbal portraits of apparently ordinary lives driven by pain and disquiet. Read full book review >