"[2] In The Observer, Lucy Scholes concludes "As a collection, these initially disparate-seeming stories come together to build a coherent and cohesive whole; whether the same can be said for the lives depicted, Swift seems less sure.

"[3] Valerie Martin explains in The New York Times: "There's something bright and rewarding about this tendency to consider both the connotation and the denotation of words as they appear in random thoughts.

Shakespeare's characters engaged in it, and here they are still, in Swift's stories: rich and poor, soldiers, sailors, barbers, lawyers, doctors, all given to following a casual word to its source.

"[4] Matthew Dennison in The Spectator starts his review with "A calculated ordinariness unites the protagonists in Graham Swift’s new collection of short stories.

"[5] M John Harrison in The Guardian writes "This is a sharp, beautiful collection: every story quick and readable but leaving in the memory a core, a residue, of thoughtfulness.