'His best to date. It is written with great tenderness and sympathy and rhythmic energy, and structured with immense skill.' - The Guardian
'Charged with physical danger, physical courage, and Winton's brand of rugged introspection...Meticulously, intensely careful in its composition. Breath is distilled Winton.' - New York Review of Books
'A wonderfully uplifting novel… may the Lord make us truly thankful for Tim Winton' - The Telegraph (UK)
'It's unlikely Winton has ever written as well… its seeming simplicity is deceptive, for beneath its pared-back surfaces lies all the steel of a major novelist operating at full throttle' - The Age
'A novelist who, to a peerless degree, has learnt how to do it . . . Breath seems to cut through everything, and to speak with unusual honesty. . . he does what a great writer can do; to make us see' - Spectator
'An absorbing, powerful and deeply beautiful novel, a meditation on surfing which becomes a rumination about the very stuff of existence.' - The Observer
'Breath is about moving out of your depth, getting in over your head, having your soul damaged beyond repair… But against all this pointless sorrow, there remains the evanescent beauty of the world, and Winton matches that with limitlessly beautiful prose.' - Washington Post
'Small lives and big ideas, beautifully communicated: this is Winton's province and, with Breath, he reigns over it once again' - Sunday Telegraph
'A masterpiece ... It is difficult to avoid superlatives in any honest summary of the importance of this novel. It will surely be a classic of Australian literature' - Time Out (Sydney)
'Unforgettable' - The Monthly
'Winton rides the line between terror, joy and hokum with exquisite balance ...' - The New York Times
'I loved it - Tom Sawyer searching for Moby-Dick in a David Lynch film' - BBC Radio 4
'Absolutely brilliant. Winton is better than any living novelist I can think of ...' - BBC Radio 4
'This brilliant book may well turn out to be the finest thing that Winton has done' - Sydney Morning Herald
'Winton's gift for rendering something extraordinary out of ordinary lives is beautifully apparent... As powerful and heart-rending a story about youth as you'll find.' - Australian Bookseller & Publisher
'Its lyricism is exquisite… While Breath deals with primal, mythic conflicts - the clash of wilderness and civilization, self and society, youth and age - it does not strain for epic effect.' - Times Literary Supplement
'... holds the elements of innocence and experience, adventure and self-destruction, in a convincingly and delicately mysterious balance, making for a novel that lingers long in the mind.' - Sunday Times (UK)
'This epic surfing novel is framed inside a merciless portrayal of human stupidity and propensity for self-harm... Tough, visceral lyricism. Winton on a wave is irresistible.' - The Independent
'An exquisitely calibrated account of the different costs paid for momentarily vaulting over and beyond the human... Breath is not a novel about the addictive nature of adrenaline but an exploration of whether one can find one's depth once the entire ocean of experience has been redefined' - Scotland on Sunday
'Winton is a writer in commanding mid-career form paring his art down to its essentials. Small in scale and local in focus, Breath nonetheless achieves epic scope.' - Montreal Gazette
'Breath may prove to be the best thing Winton has done' - SMH
'It's unlikely Winton has ever written as well as he writes in Breath' - Age
'Winton's best writing since Cloudstreet ... irresistible and elemental' - ABR
'Breath seems to cut through everything and to speak with unusual honesty ... beautifully and lucidly done' - Spectator
'As good as it gets' - The Times
'Mesmerizing ... dive in and coast on the pure joy of it' - Canberra Times
'Written in sparse and beautiful prose, Winton takes you down deep and never lets you go' - Australia Women's Weekly
'In turns delicate and brutal, beautiful and shocking' - Courier-Mail
'Vivid, intoxicating and beautifully written' - Economist
'Direct and beautiful' - Australian Literary Review
'Masterful' - Herald-Sun
'Extraordinary' - Australian
'A masterpiece. It is difficult to avoid superlatives in any honest summary of the importance of this novel. It will surely be a classic of Australian literature, enjoyed and admired by all who read it.' - Time Out (Sydney)
'A wonderfully uplifting novel ... May the Lord make us truly thankful for Tim Winton' - Telegraph (UK)
