INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

“Witty, tender-hearted, fervent . . . This novel is an example, now rare, of the courage of imaginative ardor.” —The New York Times Book Review

“The Cider House Rules is difficult to define and impossible not to admire.” ―Daily Telegraph

“He is among the very best storytellers at work today. At the base of Irving’s own moral concerns is a rare and lasting regard for human kindness.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer

“John Irving has been compared with Kurt Vonnegut and J. D. Salinger but is arguably more inventive than either. Wry, laconic, he sketches his characters with an economy that springs from a feeling for words and mastery over his craft. This superbly original book is one to be read and remembered.” ―The Times

“An old-fashioned, big-hearted novel . . . with its epic yearning caught in the nineteenth century, somewhere between Trollope and Twain.” —The Boston Sunday Globe

“Funnier than Garp. . . . An irresistibly readable yarn spun by a master's voice.” ―Time Out

“Entertaining and affecting . . . John Irving is the most relentlessly inventive writer around. He proliferates colorful incidents and crotchets of character. . . . A truly astounding amount of artistry and ingenuity.” —The San Diego Union

“Like the rest of Irving's fiction, it is often disconcerting, but always exciting and provoking.” ―The Observer

“The Cider House Rules is filled with people to love and to feel for. . . . The characters in John Irving's novel break all the rules, and yet they remain noble and free-spirited. Victims of tragedy, violence, and injustice, their lives seem more interesting and full of thought-provoking dilemmas than the lives of many real people.” —The Houston Post

“Superb in scope and originality, a novel as good as one could hope to find from any author, anywhere, anytime. Engrossing, moving, thoroughly satisfying.” —Joseph Heller, author of Catch-22

“With each new novel John Irving displays widening of compass. . . . It is the breadth and spread, the depth of characterization that lift this novel beyond anything that Irving has done before. . . . This may be a novel of Maine, but it carries a far wider meaning.” —John Barkham Reviews

“Irving is in top form in this capacious novel of personal discovery. . . . Deft realism in both scene and characterization . . . The Cider House Rules is a mature, entertaining novel.” —Library Journal

“Clearly Irving’s best-made book and a book of importance. It is a tour de force, a heavyweight among books, as John Irving must be accounted among writers. . . . He accomplishes his feat with both humanity and wisdom. . . . A moving, sometimes hilarious, and unfailingly entertaining story.” —St. Petersburg Times