To the casual listener, the music that Mr. Denk describes in the CD booklet as "brilliant, inventive, tender, edgy, wild, original, witty, haunting" can certainly sound avant-garde.
Barry weaves his own odyssey to "Beatle Island" into a tale of fame, freaks, bad liquor and bad weather, with Lennon – angry, brilliant, sarcastic, tender, on a doomed quest for artistic release and his Irish roots – at its centre.
But Akhil's next novel is more personal, more brilliant, more tender, more sad, more hard-won, and more honest.
In a statement, Chakrabarti called How to Be Both a "tender, brilliant and witty novel of grief, love, sexuality and shape-shifting identity".
There are passages from "The Anthologist" that are as brilliant, eloquent and tender as anything Baker has ever written, but what he wants to do is dilate on the emotional triggers, formal properties and soul-rearranging rewards of poetry.
Some of the most tender, brilliant passages in The Signature of All Things come from Alma's well-meaning bafflement at the illogicality of other people's behaviour which cannot be ordered and understood like specimens under a microscope slide can be.
The story of a misfit 57-year-old man, "too old for starting over, too young for giving up", and the companionship he finds with a small one-eyed dog, it was previously longlisted for the Guardian first book award, and was described by Costa judges as "one to cherish … a tough but tender, brilliant read full of fresh wonder".
It was horrible to see her going from someone so tender and brilliant and warm to being kind of derelict and lost.
"It was horrible to see her going from someone so tender and brilliant and warm to being kind of derelict and lost," he said.
His notes overflowed with nuances of their lives; he captured their voices and gained tender and brilliant insights that had escaped me during a decade of care.
