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Reading lists

Debut novels of 2025: discover the year’s breakthrough new voices

Austin Taylor

Notes on Infinity is mesmeric . . . it stole my breath and my heart. It’s a grand story of science and startups, a simple story of first love and belonging and a perfect portrait of friendship, family, and that fine line between exhilaration and agony. I couldn’t have loved it more.

Chris Whitaker, author of All the Colours of the Dark

A little like Talking at Night meets Lessons in Chemistry and an absolute must-read for fans of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. But all other books fell out my head as I read it, because I was completely consumed by Zoe and Jack’s world. Full of passion and conflict and surprise, I adored every page. It fired me up and broke my heart: Austin Taylor has such a talent, reminding me what a wild ride reading can and should be. I’ve already told I know everyone to read it!

Claire Daverley, author of Talking at Night

I adored it. I have an absolute fascination in start-ups from colleagues’ stories of Google in its early days. This delivered in that respect, but in so many others, too: love, and partnership, and being the only woman in the room, growing up and deciding who you wish to be. It is very clever, but it has a huge, messy heart, which is exactly what I love in a book.

Abigail Dean, bestselling author of Girl A

The best of books: one I could not put down while also, simultaneously, wishing it was truly infinite. A perfectly realized novel with crystalline characters and a palpable sense of time, historically and of the characters' lives. Austin Taylor's ability to tell a story is superb and NOTES ON INFINITY is a reading experience to savour.

The brilliant love child of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and The Interestings. It asks all the big questions about existence and meaning and, most importantly, love, but in a way that is so engaging you are swept along by the tide of an enthralling story about tech and billion dollar start-ups. I thought about it the whole time I wasn't reading it and expect to think about it for a long time to come.

Araminta Hall, author of One of the Good Guys

Notes On Infinity is an utterly compelling tale of love, friendship, and the burning desire to succeed – whatever the cost. Think: Lessons in Chemistry meets Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. A bright, brilliant debut from an exciting new voice in contemporary fiction.

Lucy Clarke, bestselling author of The Hike

Taylor shines in her intelligent debut… Thrills with her crackling and science-heavy description of the hothouse startup… Readers will race through the pages to find out what happens next. This is a winner.

So much more than a love-story - impossible to put into words. Notes on Infinity surprised, delighted and moved me at every turn; a devourable tale of friendship and trust, power and privilege - and, ultimately, of what it is to be human. I didn’t want it to end… and then it did.

Charlotte Philby, author of The End of Summer

It's rare that a book both moves and enthrals me as Notes on Infinity did. Taylor has crafted a smart, compelling read that explores the complicated relationships between truth and ambition; science and ethics; and our desire for immortality and the reality of what it is to be human. It's Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, if the protagonist was Elizabeth Holmes. I loved it.

Katie Bishop, author of The Girls of Summer

Notes on Infinity is smart, vivid and utterly compelling. I was rooting so hard for these characters who are so warm and beautifully drawn. A masterfully told story about love, obsession and facing our own mortality. I loved it.

Austin tackles meaty moral and technical ideas, with all the high drama of first love and coming-of-age thrown in. I was rooting for the flawed Zoe and Jack the whole way through. What a ride!

Such a poignant book. I really enjoyed the inside look on biotech start-up life and the discussions of science, quantum physics and consciousness. I kept highlighting favourite sentences in it. I truly loved it.

Kate Fagan, author of The Three Lives of Cate Kay

An exciting new voice in fiction, Taylor writes a deeply layered debut with a sure hand. At its heart, Notes On Infinity is a novel about what makes us human, what stories we tell ourselves and others, and all the ways we love and dream and endure and lose. Propulsive and tender, sharp and insightful, Notes On Infinity feels like a peek behind closed doors of familiar headlines about untouchable founders who skyrocket to success, revealed with such intimacy it all feels true. I devoured it.

Amy Neff, bestselling author of The Days I Loved You the Most

This unputdownable campus novel offers an inside look at the intense, high-stakes world of academia, where ambition, brilliance, and pressure collide. Austin Taylor gives a sharp, thoughtful exploration of the pursuit of dreams, of greatness, and the cost of success in an environment that demands nothing less than perfection.

Weike Wang, author of Chemistry and Joan is Okay

With Notes on Infinity, a tangled tale of biotech gone awry, Taylor shifts the boundaries of the campus novel, portraying a newly pressurized student culture… [and] explores arguably the most human boundary of all - mortality.

Publishers Weekly, Spring 2025 Writers to Watch

As ambitious, intelligent, and dazzling as its characters, Notes on Infinity had me in its thrall from start to finish. A transporting smart kids campus novel and love story that examines contemporary startup culture from a tough female perspective — I will be recommending this one widely. I devoured it.

Emma Knight, bestselling author of The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus

When Zoe and Jack meet in a chemistry classroom in Harvard, they couldn’t be more different: she’s the daughter of a renowned MIT professor, he’s escaping an upbringing steeped in poverty – but they are immediately drawn to one another. 
 
Neither knows it yet, but in two years’ time, they will have dropped out of college and become business partners in a billion-dollar company that promises longer life. But as they become wrapped up in a maelstrom of insatiable ambition, greed and ultimately deceit, their love for each other will be tested to its very limit…

Austin Taylor

Praise for Notes on Infinity

Notes on Infinity is mesmeric . . . it stole my breath and my heart. It’s a grand story of science and startups, a simple story of first love and belonging and a perfect portrait of friendship, ...

A little like ***Talking at Night* meets Lessons in Chemistry and an absolute must-read for fans of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.** But all other books fell out my head as I ...

I adored it. I have an absolute fascination in start-ups from colleagues’ stories of Google in its early days. This delivered in that respect, but in so many others, too: love, and partnership, ...

Notes on Infinity is mesmeric . . . it stole my breath and my heart. It’s a grand story of science and startups, a simple story of first love and belonging and a perfect portrait of friendship, ...

A little like ***Talking at Night* meets Lessons in Chemistry and an absolute must-read for fans of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.** But all other books fell out my head as I ...

I adored it. I have an absolute fascination in start-ups from colleagues’ stories of Google in its early days. This delivered in that respect, but in so many others, too: love, and partnership, ...

Notes on Infinity is mesmeric . . . it stole my breath and my heart. It’s a grand story of science and startups, a simple story of first love and belonging and a perfect portrait of friendship, ...

A little like ***Talking at Night* meets Lessons in Chemistry and an absolute must-read for fans of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.** But all other books fell out my head as I ...

I adored it. I have an absolute fascination in start-ups from colleagues’ stories of Google in its early days. This delivered in that respect, but in so many others, too: love, and partnership, ...

Articles featuring Austin Taylor

Debut novels of 2025: discover the year’s breakthrough new voices

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Praise for Notes on Infinity

Notes on Infinity is mesmeric . . . it stole my breath and my heart. It’s a grand story of science and startups, a simple story of first love and belonging and a perfect portrait of friendship, ...

A little like Talking at Night meets Lessons in Chemistry and an absolute must-read for fans of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. But all other books fell out my head as I ...

I adored it. I have an absolute fascination in start-ups from colleagues’ stories of Google in its early days. This delivered in that respect, but in so many others, too: love, and partnership, ...

Notes on Infinity is mesmeric . . . it stole my breath and my heart. It’s a grand story of science and startups, a simple story of first love and belonging and a perfect portrait of friendship, ...

A little like Talking at Night meets Lessons in Chemistry and an absolute must-read for fans of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. But all other books fell out my head as I ...

I adored it. I have an absolute fascination in start-ups from colleagues’ stories of Google in its early days. This delivered in that respect, but in so many others, too: love, and partnership, ...

Notes on Infinity is mesmeric . . . it stole my breath and my heart. It’s a grand story of science and startups, a simple story of first love and belonging and a perfect portrait of friendship, ...

A little like Talking at Night meets Lessons in Chemistry and an absolute must-read for fans of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. But all other books fell out my head as I ...

I adored it. I have an absolute fascination in start-ups from colleagues’ stories of Google in its early days. This delivered in that respect, but in so many others, too: love, and partnership, ...

Articles featuring Austin Taylor

Debut novels of 2025: discover the year’s breakthrough new voices

A little like ***Talking at Night* meets Lessons in Chemistry and an absolute must-read for fans of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.** But all other books fell out my head as I ...

A little like ***Talking at Night* meets Lessons in Chemistry and an absolute must-read for fans of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.** But all other books fell out my head as I ...

A little like ***Talking at Night* meets Lessons in Chemistry and an absolute must-read for fans of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.** But all other books fell out my head as I ...