The New York Times Book Review
Lanchester's assured, detailed overview of today's Britain recalls…Private Eye, the satirical publication that has taken the pulse of the country's body politic for half a century…Its regular features carve British behavior into attackable, overlapping compartments: real estate…banking…politics…journalism…and so on. Lanchester's novel integrates all these spheres and more. Reading Capital is like getting a crash course in the transformation of British mores and class distinctions, which otherwise might require a decade of remedial Private Eye-reading to decode.
—Liesl Schillinger
Times on Sunday (UK)
"Brimming with perception, humane empathy and relish, its portrayal of this metropolitan miscellany is, in every sense, a capital achievement."
Claire Messud
"Precise, humane and often hilarious, John Lanchester’s Capital teems with life. Its Dickensian sweep and its clear-eyed portrayal of the end of a strange era make this novel not only immensely enjoyable, but important, too."
Joseph O’Neill
"Searching, expert, on the money. I loved it."
The Guardian (UK)
"The book John Lanchester was born to write."
Observer (UK)
"Effortlessly brilliant—gripping for its entire duration, hugely moving and outrageously funny."
Cólm Toibín
"Capital comes in a great tradition of novels which are filled with the news of now, in which the intricacies of the present moment are noticed with clarity and relish and then brilliantly dramatized. It is clear that its characters, its wisdom, and the scope and range of its sympathy, will fascinate readers into the far future."
Booklist - Donna Seaman
"An exceptionally capacious and involving tale about disparate lives in turmoil on London’s Pepys Road…. Lanchester makes us care deeply about his imperiled characters and their struggles, traumatic and ludicrous, as he astutely illuminates the paradoxes embedded in generosity and greed, age and illness, financial crime and religious fanaticism, immigration, exile, and terror. A remarkably vibrant and engrossing novel about what we truly value."
Evening Standard (UK)
"It is Lanchester’s gifts for observation and description that make Capital such a riveting read. It is a novel in which every few chapters a sentence will provoke an "I wish I had said that" reaction or, when it is a familiar thought, an: "I wish I had said that so well." … Above all, Lanchester should be applauded for a novel that is as readable as it is clever. He never attempts to prove his own intelligence, yet it oozes from every page."
Bookpage
"As enrapturing as it is psychologically acute… Capital portrays an authentic slice of contemporary life on the eve of change in a way that recalls Franzen—with a welcome touch of wry humor."
Library Journal
It's 2008, and even as the economy shudders and falls, something sinister is happening on Pepys Road, London. The residents are all getting postcards reading "We Want What You Have." What that is, no one knows, but the ominousness fits perfectly with the anxiety of society at large, even as the novel chronicles the small, personal dramas of each household. Award winner Lanchester is always good to read.
DECEMBER 2012 - AudioFile
In an upper-end neighborhood in London in 2008, residents share little except their smug satisfaction in the astonishing rise in their home values. Until, that is, a creepy and intrusive anonymous postcard notifies each homeowner: “We Want What You Have.” Colin Mace narrates the various vignettes with an easy charm and delivers delightful glimpses into the personalities in each home. Without resorting to caricature, Mace gives a steely edge to the posh housewife who spends too much money on herself and too little time on her children, and provides a dumpy, plodding patience for the middle-aged Pakistani shopkeeper. As the economy grows shaky, Mace shades the disconnected neighbors with the tensions of everyday Londoners who find themselves on unexpectedly slippery footing. N.M. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine
