“I have always admired Richard Aronowitz's fiction, and this account of the early-Victorian Irish diaspora - and much else besides - is written with all his usual fluency and elegance.”
D.J. Taylor, novelist, biographer and former Booker Prize judge

‘Aronowitz writes with considerable … descriptive power.’
The Jewish Chronicle.
 
‘… the writer’s distinctive poetic voice offers a welcome fresh perspective.’
Rachel Hore, The Guardian.
 
‘Richard Aronowitz’s Five Amber Beads … is as much autobiography as fiction – which is how it reads. Very effectively.’
John Sutherland, The Financial Times. (former chair of the Booker Prize.)
 
‘Aronowitz portrays with elegance and thoughtfulness what it means to lose one’s sense of self.’
Simon Baker, The Spectator
 
‘After several cinematic treatments, and the literary success of Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader and Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything is Illuminated, one might wonder whether fiction has anything new to say about the Holocaust. Through his shimmering use of the language of art Aronowitz, has shown that it has.’
Christian House, The Independent on Sunday.
 
‘Told in almost poetic language, the novel contributes to our understanding of the human need for restitution.’
Margaret Studer, The Wall Street Journal Europe.

‘Richard Aronowitz’s book … exploits to a large degree our complacent assumptions about what can happen in a conventional literary novel or how psychology operates.’
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent.
 
‘A beautifully assured piece of work.’
Christian House, The Independent on Sunday.
 
‘There are moments of beauty, but what he really aims to show, amongst the teeming life of the valley and forests, is the deep loneliness of Stack.’
William Rycroft, Just William’s Luck (blog.)

‘Aronowitz’s novel is a slow burn but, as the mood darkens in Germany, it packs a terrific and moving ending.’
David Herman, The Jewish Chronicle.
 
‘An expressive, fascinating, and convincing glimpse into 1930s America just before the Second World War … a compelling, striking read.’
Lovereading, 2017.
 
‘There are staccato moments and harmony but Christoph is the lonely note whose melodic cries can be heard throughout. …
Glittering.’ Booktrailer, 2017.
 
‘A fine novel about an émigré German singer at large in the America of the 1930s, in which Richard Aronowitz displays his characteristic ability to mingle the slow unravelling of ordinary lives with the ebb and flow of world events. I greatly admired it.’
D.J. Taylor, cover quotation, 2017 (former Booker Prize judge.)