vivid - Rated 
David Mitchell is an outstanding author. This book captures brilliantly the early 1980s in a way that brings memories of that time flooding back. Anyone who was in their teens at that time will immediately connect with the main character and his account of the transition into adolescence is believable and devoid of sentiment.
If you have not yet discovered David Mitchell you are in for a treat as you have other great titles to look forward to as well. If you have read his stuff, then you will be waiting impatiently for his next book!
Mitchelltastic! - Rated
This David Mitchell guy is an artist. The stories he tells are so different from each other and yet obviously come from the same beautiful soul. I love all the work of this master storyteller, but I think Black Swan Green may be his masterpiece so far. It was one of those books that I didn't want to put down and yet I didn't want it to end, and when I finished it I just wanted to start over again. He captivated me, as usual, but this time the emotions he evoked were stronger than ever. I love love love this novel and can't recommend it highly enough.
A lyrical writer with a wonderful eye for arresting detail - Rated
This is a great story about growing up with a stammer in the Midlands. Mitchel is a lyrical writer with a wonderful eye for arresting detail. It's a poignant tale in parts but not as gloomy as some critics seem to feel. Unlike Cloud Atlas this novel didn't attract any significant literary awards, probably because it ostensibly lacks the ambition of his other books. But I liked it for the easy humour and the skilful way he recreates the political and cultural atmosphere of the early eighties. I also share his protagonist's belief in the pointlessness of Twiglits.
Puberty and Poetry - Rated 
Take a trip into the mind of a twelve-to-thirteen year old boy who is experiencing the beginnings of puberty, love of poetry and 'what life means' in Thatcherite England. He draws metaphors from the everyday, the mundane and things you would never have thought of yourself, but which, upon reflection, appear so incredibly appropriate. 'She had knuckles like toblerone' is one I recall (probably inaccurately) offhand.
This book once again exemplifies why Mitchell is such a fantastic author. He is able to go from the incredible accomplishment of Cloud Atlas, to the more meditative and playful Black Swan Green. What makes the book doubly good, and why it is true Mitchell fare, is that he obviously takes such pleasure in language, he relishes words and finding wonderful metaphors for the mundane. If nothing else it makes you believe Jason, makes you want to have met him as an adolescent and to wonder at what kind of a man he would be now.
I also enjoyed the cute connection to Cloud Atlas. I'm a sucker for such things.
Autobiographical: The pain of adolescence. - Rated
As the author David Mitchell was born in 1969 there is no doubt at all in my mind that this novel is strongly based on his own life experiences. It is no surprise therefore that as he and Jason were both thirteen in 1982 that he succeeds in portraying the protagonist Jason Taylor so well.
When I first started the book I was not at all sure it was going to appeal to me. My husband, having read and enjoyed it himself, fortunately encouraged me to preserve. I am glad he did so as I enjoyed it more and more as it progressed. Nostalgically it recalls in great detail life in the 1980's in rural England. A time, I remember well when I was bringing up a young family.
Black Swan Green is the name of the village he lives in and the book centres on his life there over the period of a year. Jason is a bright sensitive boy, who writes poetry in secret and suffers with a stammer. Jason is desperate to fit in at school and be a popular student but his stammer makes him an easy target for the school bullies. It is a sometimes painful account of male adolescence as Jason struggles to come to terms with everything that is going on his life; his poetry, the bullies, his parent's relationship, girls, the Falklands War and gypsies.
Definitely worth reading.
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