The Beach

Fresh, fast-paced, compulsive and clever

Nick Hornby

A gripping adventure, and a fascinating jigsaw

The Times

A white-knuckle ride into the heart of darkness

Sunday Times

Lord of the Flies and The Magus lurk at the roots of this novel, but Garland reshapes them with panache into something terrifyingly new

Mail on Sunday

A mesmerising, knuckle-clenching read

Maxim

Winningly compulsive, brilliantly conceived

Q

Garland's prose is stunningly lucid. Addictive and compelling

Spectator

A highly confident debut...this incisive novel may well come to be regarded as a defining text in the history of imaginative travel writing

Daily Telegraph

Alex Garland is writing a brand new kind of adventure novel. His style is dangerously simple yet altogether captivating

Douglas Rushkoff

An exceptional first novel...An action novel that provokes subtle responses, The Beach takes in ideas about man's inevitable progress from noble savage to social breakdown (and) the related tradition of nature versus art

The Times Literary Supplement

Garland has written a powerful and frighteningly believable novel

Company

Precise and speedy prose, with good old-fashioned romantic adventure spiced up with deadpan authorial irony

Guardian