This slim, wise masterpiece... is both unsentimental and heart-melting, and I read it every year.
Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love
Guardian
It is like looking through clear water and seeing, suddenly, the depth ... Jansson was a writer who knew the proper magnitudes of our small worlds.
Ali Smith The Summer Book's limpid style ... Read morebelies a deep psychological subtlety...Rereading it now, it feels like a survival guide.
Melissa Harrison Tove Jansson was a genius. This is a marvellous, beautiful, wise novel, which is also very funny.
Philip Pullman This is a wonderful, life-affirming, spirited book. Reading it was a tonic.
Chris Stewart (author, Driving Over Lemons) It's hard to describe the astonishing achievement of Jansson's artistry . . . a perfection of the small, quiet read.
Ali Smith
Guardian, Book of the Week
The Summer Book is a marvellously uplifting read, full of gentle humour and wisdom.
Justine Picardie
Daily Telegraph
Eccentric, funny, wise, full of joys and small adventures. This is a book for life.
Esther Freud A marvellous book.... The prose is sublime: plain, but not oppressively so.
Independent on Sunday
Few books since Robinson Crusoe have evoked the joys of island living so powerfully as this Finnish novella.
Jonathan Heawood
Observer
A wonderful novel to devour in the sunshine . . . full of charm and character.
Benedicte Page
the Independent
An odd but beautiful novel which blends humour and poetry with detailed observation of tiny things.
Georgia Metcalfe
Daily Mail
Every so often, a book is published that captures something in us. . . . The Summer Book is one of those.
Rachel Simhon
The Daily Telegraph
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