‘It gave form to an ache I felt. I grew up in the suburbs and my prospects were safe there: they housed my family and all of my friends. But I was desperate to spend my days in, and on, and near to, the ocean.’

‘She just radiated generosity — not the sort of empty friendliness you get at networking events, or the condescending niceness of a celebrity doing you a huge favour, but someone genuinely kind.’

‘The writing was full of all those moments that usually stay hidden, especially for male characters. The bodily fluids. The itchy skin. The grime of a bathtub.’

‘I believe a story should stand on its own, regardless of an author’s reputation, motivation or any explanation of intent.’

‘For me, the collective writing of Monty Python is an exploration of the boundaries of the thing that connects us all – humanity – through humour. Their persistent and profound sense of bathos, delivered with a laugh, is deeply human, beautiful and useful.’

‘What always attracts me to Park’s books is her flair for storytelling. The drama! The pathos! The cacophony of life that surrounds the Darcy family in The Harp in the South and Poor Man’s Orange.’

‘There was always something special and luminous in the stripped back verse of Porter. She could make words dance across the mind and sear themselves into your cerebellum, she could lift you up, she could tear your heart out in a way that made you say ‘thank you’ then beg for more.’

‘Fahrenheit 451 both scared the bejesus out of me and encapsulated the ‘locked and loaded’ feeling of being seized, seduced and taken over by a piece of fiction, and the glimmering politicising awareness that reading itself is a subversive act.’

‘These are poems about terrible suffering but they are also strangely beautiful. I was impressed by the brilliant technical control and moved by the content.’