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It is Brighton, 1959, and the theatre at the end of the pier is
having its best summer season in years. Ronnie, a brilliant young
magician, and Evie, his dazzling assistant, are top of the bill,
drawing audiences each night. Meanwhile, Jack - Jack Robinson, as
in 'before you can say' - is everyone's favourite compere, a born
entertainer, holding the whole show together. As the summer
progresses, the off-stage drama between the three begins to
overshadow their theatrical success, and events unfold which will
have lasting consequences for all their futures. Rich, comic, alive
and subtly devastating, Here We Are is a masterly piece of literary
magicianship which pulls back the curtain on the human condition.
'He tells simple, truthful stories about what feel like real
people. Here We Are is a welcome addition to a proud legacy.' The
Big Issue The variety of voices and its historical and emotional
reach are so finely entwined, it is as perfect and smooth as an
egg. Passages leap out all the time, demanding to be reread, or
committed to memory... It is perhaps too simple to say that Swift
creates a form of fictional magic, but what he can do with a page
is out of the ordinary, far beyond most mortals' ken.' Rosemary
Goring,The Herald 'Here We Are is a subtle portrait of a vanished
world, with moving passages about the problems of wartime evacuees
returning to impoverished London life after the wonders of the
countryside.' The Independent 'In Here We Are, Swift does not just
dwell on the pivotal moments of our lives, but traces their
shockwaves both forward and back. Moving seamlessly from pre-war to
post, from the events of one illusory, youthful summer to the
present, we are given candid access to the innermost reflections of
three people who loved and betrayed each other. The end result is
the stuff of life, an enduring mystery that Ronnie, Evie, Jack -
that we all - must live with. I thought it was wonderful.' Joseph
Knox, author of Sirens Praise for Mothering Sunday: 'Bathed in
light; and even when tragedy strikes, it blazes irresistibly...
Swift's small fiction feels like a masterpiece' Guardian 'Alive
with sensuousness and sensuality ... wonderfully accomplished, it
is an achievement' Sunday Times 'From start to finish Swift's is a
novel of stylish brilliance and quiet narrative verve. The archly
modulated, precise prose (a hybrid of Henry Green and Kazuo
Ishiguro) is a glory to read. Now 66, Swift is a writer at the very
top of his game' Evening Standard 'Mothering Sunday is a powerful,
philosophical and exquisitely observed novel about the lives we
lead, and the parallel lives - the parallel stories - we can never
know ... It may just be Swift's best novel yet' Observer
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Last Orders (CD, Unabridged edition)
Graham Swift; Read by Phil Davis, Sandra Duncan, Simon Slater, Gareth Armstrong; Created by …
|
R414
Discovery Miles 4 140
|
Ships in 12 - 17 working days
|
WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 1996 Four men once close to Jack Dodds,
a London butcher, meet to carry out his peculiar last wish: to have
his ashes scattered into the sea at Margate. For reasons best known
to herself, Jack's widow, Amy, declines to join them . . . On the
surface a simple tale of an increasingly bizarre day's outing, this
Booker-prize winning, internationally acclaimed novel is a resonant
and classic exploration of the complexity and courage of ordinary
lives. Intensely local but overwhelmingly universal, faithful to
the fleeting rhythms and accidental eloquence of everyday speech
but also to the timeless truths of life and death, it succeeds in
being comic and heartstopping, affectionate and wise, and in
conferring on its stumbling, disappointed characters an enduring
decency, dignity and depth. 'A surpassing testament to Swift's
vibrant and powerful gifts' The Times 'A triumph . . . a story
about the most fundamental things of all' Evening Standard
FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LAST ORDERS AND MOTHERING SUNDAY.
One summer morning in 1943, lock-keeper Henry Crick finds the
drowned body of a sixteen-year-old boy. Nearly forty years later,
his son Tom, a history teacher, is driven by a bizarre marital
crisis and the provocation of one of his students to forsake the
formal teaching of history-and tell stories . . . Waterland is a
classic of modern fiction: a vision of England seen through its
mysterious, amphibious Fen country; a sinuous meditation on the
workings of time; a tale of two families, startling in its twists
and turns and universal in its reach. Compulsively readable, it is
a novel of resonant depth and encyclopaedic richness, mixing human
and natural history and exploring the tragic forces that take us
both forwards and back. It is also a book about beer, eels, the
French Revolution, the end of the world, windmills,
will-o'-the-wisps, murder, love, education, curiosity
and-supremely-the malign and merciful element of water. 'A quite
brilliant novel' Daily Telegraph 'Inspired' New York Times
Now a major film starring Olivia Colman, Colin Firth, Odessa Young
and Josh O'Connor (The Crown), scripted by Alice Birch (Normal
People) 'Exquisite . . . Mothering Sunday shows love, lust and
ordinary decency straining against the bars of an unjust English
caste system' Kazuo Ishiguro It is March 30th 1924. It is Mothering
Sunday. How will Jane Fairchild, orphan and housemaid, occupy her
time when she has no mother to visit? How, shaped by the events of
this never to be forgotten day, will her future unfold? Beginning
with an intimate assignation and opening to embrace decades,
Mothering Sunday has at its heart both the story of a life and the
life that stories can magically contain. Constantly surprising,
joyously sensual and deeply moving, it is Graham Swift at his
thrilling best. Praise for Mothering Sunday: 'Mothering Sunday is a
powerful, philosophical and exquisitely observed novel about the
lives we lead, and the parallel lives - the parallel stories - we
can never know ... It may just be Swift's best novel yet' The
Observer 'Dazzling . . . a vanished world is resurrected with
superb immediacy . . . wonderfully accomplished' Sunday Times
'Stunning . . . It is about the most perfect novel you could wish
to read' The Guardian 'From start to finish Swift's is a novel of
stylish brilliance and quiet narrative verve . . . Swift is a
writer at the very top of his game' Evening Standard From the
Booker-winning author of Last Orders and Waterland comes a
long-awaited new novel. 'Mothering Sunday is bathed in light; and
even when tragedy strikes, it blazes irresistibly... Swift's small
fiction feels like a masterpiece' The Guardian 'Mastery and
resonance . . . It's one of the novel's great strengths to be able
to shift with such agility between focus scene and lifetime
recollection . . . the languid, blissful minutes of March 30, 1924
seem to contain all the succeeding decades' Times Literary
Supplement 'A dazzling read: sexy, stylish, subversive' Herald
Scotland 'A jewel of a book, a subtle, erotically charged novella
suspended between past and future' Hermione Lee 'A work of gold
from the subtle pen of the great Graham Swift' Le Monde 'With this
novel he captures what it means to be alive' Der Spiegel 'An
exquisite novella of love and loss . . . a short yet powerful and
intricately layered work . . . every sentence counting and not a
word out of place' The Australian
FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LAST ORDERS AND MOTHERING SUNDAY,
and reissued for the first time in Scribner, a brilliant collection
of essays, as well as brand new material, that will delight and
intrigue readers. In Making an Elephant, Graham Swift brings
together a richly varied selection of essays, portraits, poetry,
and reflections on his life in writing. Full of insights into his
passions and motivations, and wise about the friends, family, and
other writers who have mattered to him over the years, this is a
revealing and intimate collection. Kazuo Ishiguro advises on how to
choose a guitar, Salman Rushdie arrives for Christmas under guard,
and Ted Hughes shares the secrets of a Devon river. There are
private moments, too, with long-dead writers, as well as musings on
history and memory that readers of Swift's novels will recognize
and love. Praise for Mothering Sunday: 'Bathed in light; and even
when tragedy strikes, it blazes irresistibly... Swift's small
fiction feels like a masterpiece' Guardian 'Alive with sensuousness
and sensuality ... wonderfully accomplished, it is an achievement'
Sunday Times 'From start to finish Swift's is a novel of stylish
brilliance and quiet narrative verve. The archly modulated, precise
prose (a hybrid of Henry Green and Kazuo Ishiguro) is a glory to
read. Now 66, Swift is a writer at the very top of his game'
Evening Standard 'Mothering Sunday is a powerful, philosophical and
exquisitely observed novel about the lives we lead, and the
parallel lives - the parallel stories - we can never know ... It
may just be Swift's best novel yet' Observer
Time Out Novel of the Year 'Astonishingly moving' Sunday Express On
an autumn day in 2006, on the Isle of Wight, Jack Luxton -- former
Devon farmer, now proprietor of a seaside caravan park -- receives
the news that his brother Tom, not seen for years, has been killed
in Iraq. For Jack and his wife Ellie this will have a potentially
catastrophic impact and compel Jack to make a crucial journey: to
receive his brother's remains, but also to return to the land of
his past and confront his most secret, troubling memories. Building
to a fiercely suspenseful climax, Wish You Were Here is a
hauntingly compassionate story that allows us to feel the stuff of
headlines as heart-wrenching personal truth. 'Profound and powerful
...an unputdownable read' Scotland on Sunday 'A wonderful writer'
Daily Telegraph
'A quietly, devastating, magical novel' Daily Telegraph 'Beautiful,
gentle, intricate... Here We Are smuggles within the pages of a
seemingly commonplace tale depths of emotion and narrative
complexity that take the breath away.' The Observer It is Brighton,
1959, and the theatre at the end of the pier is having its best
summer season in years. Ronnie, a brilliant young magician, and
Evie, his dazzling assistant, are top of the bill, drawing
audiences each night. Meanwhile, Jack - Jack Robinson, as in
'before you can say' - is everyone's favourite compere, a born
entertainer, holding the whole show together. As the summer
progresses, the off-stage drama between the three begins to
overshadow their theatrical success, and events unfold which will
have lasting consequences for all their futures. Rich, comic, alive
and subtly devastating, Here We Are is a masterly piece of literary
magicianship which pulls back the curtain on the human condition.
'With a wizardry of his own, Swift conjures up an
about-to-disappear little world and turns it into something of
wider resonance' Sunday Times 'There's nothing extravagant or showy
about Here We Are . . . The book's power comes precisely from the
fact that it performs its magic in front of your eyes, leaving
nowhere to hide . . . you wonder how he does it.' Financial Times
'As with all his books, it's the moments of quiet, undramatic
poignancy that stay with you' Sunday Express 'He tells simple,
truthful stories about what feel like real people. Here We Are is a
welcome addition to a proud legacy.' The Big Issue The variety of
voices and its historical and emotional reach are so finely
entwined, it is as perfect and smooth as an egg. Passages leap out
all the time, demanding to be reread, or committed to memory... It
is perhaps too simple to say that Swift creates a form of fictional
magic, but what he can do with a page is out of the ordinary, far
beyond most mortals' ken.' Rosemary Goring, The Herald 'Here We Are
is a subtle portrait of a vanished world, with moving passages
about the problems of wartime evacuees returning to impoverished
London life after the wonders of the countryside.' The Independent
'In Here We Are, Swift does not just dwell on the pivotal moments
of our lives, but traces their shockwaves both forward and back.
Moving seamlessly from pre-war to post, from the events of one
illusory, youthful summer to the present, we are given candid
access to the innermost reflections of three people who loved and
betrayed each other. The end result is the stuff of life, an
enduring mystery that Ronnie, Evie, Jack - that we all - must live
with. I thought it was wonderful.' Joseph Knox, author of Sirens
Praise for Mothering Sunday: 'Bathed in light; and even when
tragedy strikes, it blazes irresistibly... Swift's small fiction
feels like a masterpiece' Guardian 'Alive with sensuousness and
sensuality ... wonderfully accomplished, it is an achievement'
Sunday Times 'From start to finish Swift's is a novel of stylish
brilliance and quiet narrative verve. The archly modulated, precise
prose (a hybrid of Henry Green and Kazuo Ishiguro) is a glory to
read. Now 66, Swift is a writer at the very top of his game'
Evening Standard 'Mothering Sunday is a powerful, philosophical and
exquisitely observed novel about the lives we lead, and the
parallel lives - the parallel stories - we can never know ... It
may just be Swift's best novel yet' Observer
|
Last Orders (Paperback)
Graham Swift
1
|
R293
R201
Discovery Miles 2 010
Save R92 (31%)
|
Ships in 12 - 17 working days
|
WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 1996 Four men once close to Jack Dodds,
a London butcher, meet to carry out his peculiar last wish: to have
his ashes scattered into the sea at Margate. For reasons best known
to herself, Jack's widow, Amy, declines to join them . . . On the
surface a simple tale of an increasingly bizarre day's outing, this
Booker-prize winning, internationally acclaimed novel is a resonant
and classic exploration of the complexity and courage of ordinary
lives. Intensely local but overwhelmingly universal, faithful to
the fleeting rhythms and accidental eloquence of everyday speech
but also to the timeless truths of life and death, it succeeds in
being comic and heartstopping, affectionate and wise, and in
conferring on its stumbling, disappointed characters an enduring
decency, dignity and depth. 'A surpassing testament to Swift's
vibrant and powerful gifts' The Times 'A triumph . . . a story
about the most fundamental things of all' Evening Standard
FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF MOTHERING SUNDAY AND LAST ORDERS,
and reissued for the first time on the Scribner list, The Light of
Day is both a gripping crime story and a remarkable love story. On
a cold but dazzling November morning George Webb, a former
policeman turned private detective, prepares to visit Sarah, a
prisoner and the woman he loves. As he goes about the business of
the day he relives the catastrophic events of two years ago that
have both bound them together and kept them apart. Making
atmospheric use of its suburban setting and shot through with a
plain man's unwitting poetry and rueful humour, The Light of Day is
a powerful and moving tale of murder, redemption and of the
discovery, for better or worse, of the hidden forces inside us.
Praise for Mothering Sunday:'Bathed in light; and even when tragedy
strikes, it blazes irresistibly... Swift's small fiction feels like
a masterpiece' Guardian 'Alive with sensuousness and sensuality ...
wonderfully accomplished, it is an achievement' Sunday Times 'From
start to finish Swift's is a novel of stylish brilliance and quiet
narrative verve. The archly modulated, precise prose (a hybrid of
Henry Green and Kazuo Ishiguro) is a glory to read. Now 66, Swift
is a writer at the very top of his game' Evening Standard
'Mothering Sunday is a powerful, philosophical and exquisitely
observed novel about the lives we lead, and the parallel lives -
the parallel stories - we can never know ... It may just be Swift's
best novel yet'Observer
A collection of new stories from the Booker-prize winning author of
Last Orders, and of the Sunday Times bestseller Mothering Sunday.
Meet Dr Shah, who has never been to India, and Mrs Kaminski, on her
way to Poland via A&E. Meet Holly and Polly, who have come to
their own Anglo-Irish understanding; Charlie and Don, who have seen
the docks turn into Docklands; Daisy Baker, terrified of Yorkshire;
and Johnny Dewhurst, stranded on Exmoor. Binding these stories
together is Graham Swift's affectionate but unflinching instinct
for the story of us all: an evocation of that mysterious body that
is a nation, deepened by the palpable sense of our individual
bodies finding or losing their way in the nationless territory of
birth, ageing, sex and death. Praise for Mothering Sunday: 'Bathed
in light; and even when tragedy strikes, it blazes irresistibly...
Swift's small fiction feels like a masterpiece' Guardian 'Alive
with sensuousness and sensuality ... wonderfully accomplished, it
is an achievement' Sunday Times 'From start to finish Swift's is a
novel of stylish brilliance and quiet narrative verve. The archly
modulated, precise prose (a hybrid of Henry Green and Kazuo
Ishiguro) is a glory to read. Now 66, Swift is a writer at the very
top of his game' Evening Standard 'Mothering Sunday is a powerful,
philosophical and exquisitely observed novel about the lives we
lead, and the parallel lives - the parallel stories - we can never
know ... It may just be Swift's best novel yet' Observer
An in-depth review of important preparative methods for the
synthesis and chemical modification of polymers, this authoritative
second edition examines the advantages and limitations of various
polymerization applications and procedures. It features new
approaches and innovative strategies from the most prominent
industry and academic laboratories, reflecting the burgeoning role
of polymers in modern science and technology. The book analyzes
biodegradable polymers for biomedical applications; investigates
the use of polyolefins, polymeric dienes, aromatic polyethers,
polymides, and metal-containing macromolecules; and covers polymers
of acrylic acid, methacrylic acid, and maleic acid.
It is Brighton, 1959, and the theatre at the end of the pier is
having its best summer season in years. Ronnie, a brilliant young
magician, and Evie, his dazzling assistant, are top of the bill,
drawing audiences each night. Meanwhile, Jack - Jack Robinson, as
in 'before you can say' - is everyone's favourite compere, a born
entertainer, holding the whole show together. As the summer
progresses, the off-stage drama between the three begins to
overshadow their theatrical success, and events unfold which will
have lasting consequences for all their futures. Rich, comic, alive
and subtly devastating, Here We Are is a masterly piece of literary
magicianship which pulls back the curtain on the human condition.
'One to watch for 2020' according to: The Sunday Times The Times
The Daily Telegraph The Guardian Financial Times Evening Standard
The Scotsman The Irish Times 'He tells simple, truthful stories
about what feel like real people. Here We Are is a welcome addition
to a proud legacy.' The Big Issue The variety of voices and its
historical and emotional reach are so finely entwined, it is as
perfect and smooth as an egg. Passages leap out all the time,
demanding to be reread, or committed to memory... It is perhaps too
simple to say that Swift creates a form of fictional magic, but
what he can do with a page is out of the ordinary, far beyond most
mortals' ken.' Rosemary Goring,The Herald 'Here We Are is a subtle
portrait of a vanished world, with moving passages about the
problems of wartime evacuees returning to impoverished London life
after the wonders of the countryside.' The Independent 'In Here We
Are, Swift does not just dwell on the pivotal moments of our lives,
but traces their shockwaves both forward and back. Moving
seamlessly from pre-war to post, from the events of one illusory,
youthful summer to the present, we are given candid access to the
innermost reflections of three people who loved and betrayed each
other. The end result is the stuff of life, an enduring mystery
that Ronnie, Evie, Jack - that we all - must live with. I thought
it was wonderful.' Joseph Knox, author of Sirens 'As with all his
books, it's the moments of quiet, undramatic poignancy that stay
with you' Sunday Express 'a quietly, devastating, magical novel'
Telegraph 'With a wizardry of his own, Swift conjures up an
about-to-disappear little world and turns it into something of
wider resonance' Sunday Times 'We are propelled into something
extraordinary...Swift's closing account of a mundane world
momentarily pierced by a shaft of numinous mystery is magnificent'
New York Times 'Graham Swift has perfected a distinctive
style...his beautiful new novel Here We Are...is a work of magic:
neither trick nor illusion, but a flash of truth' Wall Street
Journal 'Swift captures the tragicomedy of life' Washington Post
'Here We Are is a paragon of the magic of compressed
narration...Once again, Swift has demonstrated wizardry in his
ability to conjure magic out of ordinary lives' NPR USA ' '"Here we
are." How easily those three small words can vanish in expected
niceties-and how loaded they can be with bewilderment at the
inexorable ''tilt of the world''. Graham Swift conjures them all,
and more, in this short, word-perfect novel' Sydney Morning Herald
'Graham Swift is the quiet master of fiction' The Age, Melbourne
'An ethereal foray into the vanishing world of the
magician...beautiful, breath-taking and heart-wrenching' Australian
Women's Weekly 'In 2016 with his book Mothering Sunday Graham Swift
reached a high plateau of storytelling art...Graham Swift's new
novel Here We Are is on the same high plateau as Mothering Sunday'
Suddeutsche Zeitung, Germany 'The beauty of Graham Swift's books is
that he gives you what you want without your knowing that you
wanted it. How does he achieve this magical feat? It remains his
secret. What a magician' Tagesspiegel, Germany 'Swift is a master
of the nuance and the hint, of what remains unsaid. In this respect
a novel about magic and illusion seems exactly the right terrain
for him...Once again he proves that he is one of the great
conjurers of contemporary literature' Wiener Zeitung, Austria
'Swift employs an unadorned but intense, musical prose that bathes
the events described in an elusive gleam...Not for the first time
Graham Swift captures the magic and mystery of 'ordinary' lives'
Het Parool, Netherlands 'The author knows, as always, how to render
the human condition with a light touch... To catch the magic of
life in words: an undertaking Graham Swift has mastered like no one
else' De Telegraaf, Belgium 'Swift doesn't write, he whispers. His
work is characterised by stories of ordinary life that, thanks to
his mediation, always reveal a universal dimension...Here We Are is
yet more proof of his incredible soft-voiced technique...a perfect
example of Swift's ability to touch the hidden poetry in every
human being' Corriere della Sera, Italy It is one of those
wonderful tales that one could have read fifty years ago or
discovered half a century hence with the same delight, one of those
novels of timeless beauty-thanks to the art of Graham Swift, who
has no equal in evoking the atmosphere of an era while probing
human psychology with irony and tenderness' L'Express, France
Praise for Mothering Sunday: 'Bathed in light; and even when
tragedy strikes, it blazes irresistibly... Swift's small fiction
feels like a masterpiece' Guardian 'Alive with sensuousness and
sensuality ... wonderfully accomplished, it is an achievement'
Sunday Times 'From start to finish Swift's is a novel of stylish
brilliance and quiet narrative verve. The archly modulated, precise
prose (a hybrid of Henry Green and Kazuo Ishiguro) is a glory to
read. Now 66, Swift is a writer at the very top of his game'
Evening Standard 'Mothering Sunday is a powerful, philosophical and
exquisitely observed novel about the lives we lead, and the
parallel lives - the parallel stories - we can never know ... It
may just be Swift's best novel yet' Observer
|
Waterland (Paperback)
Graham Swift
1
|
R338
R229
Discovery Miles 2 290
Save R109 (32%)
|
Ships in 12 - 17 working days
|
The Booker Shortlisted Modern Classic from the author of Last
Orders, Mothering Sunday and Here We Are One summer morning in
1943, lock-keeper Henry Crick finds the drowned body of a
sixteen-year-old boy. Nearly forty years later, his son Tom, a
history teacher, is driven by a bizarre marital crisis and the
provocation of one of his students to forsake the formal teaching
of history-and tell stories . . . Waterland is a classic of modern
fiction: a vision of England seen through its mysterious,
amphibious Fen country; a sinuous meditation on the workings of
time; a tale of two families, startling in its twists and turns and
universal in its reach. Compulsively readable, it is a novel of
resonant depth and encyclopaedic richness, mixing human and natural
history and exploring the tragic forces that take us both forwards
and back. It is also a book about beer, eels, the French
Revolution, the end of the world, windmills, will-o'-the-wisps,
murder, love, education, curiosity and-supremely-the malign and
merciful element of water. 'A quite brilliant novel' Daily
Telegraph 'Inspired' New York Times
FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LAST ORDERS AND MOTHERING SUNDAY,
and reissued for the first time in Scribner, comes a novel called
'Profound and powerful . . . an unputdownable read' by Scotland on
Sunday. On an autumn day in 2006, on the Isle of Wight, Jack Luxton
- former Devon farmer, now proprietor of a seaside caravan park -
receives the news that his brother Tom, not seen for years, has
been killed in Iraq. For Jack and his wife Ellie this will have a
potentially catastrophic impact and compel Jack to make a crucial
journey: to receive his brother's remains, but also to return to
the land of his past and confront his most secret, troubling
memories. Praise for Mothering Sunday: 'Bathed in light; and even
when tragedy strikes, it blazes irresistibly... Swift's small
fiction feels like a masterpiece' Guardian 'Alive with sensuousness
and sensuality ... wonderfully accomplished, it is an achievement'
Sunday Times 'From start to finish Swift's is a novel of stylish
brilliance and quiet narrative verve. The archly modulated, precise
prose (a hybrid of Henry Green and Kazuo Ishiguro) is a glory to
read. Now 66, Swift is a writer at the very top of his game'
Evening Standard 'Mothering Sunday is a powerful, philosophical and
exquisitely observed novel about the lives we lead, and the
parallel lives - the parallel stories - we can never know ... It
may just be Swift's best novel yet' Observer
FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LAST ORDERS AND MOTHERING SUNDAY,
reissued for the first time in Scribner In 1972, Robert Beech,
First World War veteran and prominent figure in the arms industry,
is killed by a car bomb. The event cuts short the career of his son
Harry, a news photographer, and comes close to destroying his
granddaughter Sophie. Ten years later, Harry, now working in aerial
photography, and Sophie, visiting an analyst in New York, remain
scarred and divided by the event. Around their broken relationship
and Harry's memories of his truncated career and his father, the
novel builds a story that is acutely private yet sweepingly public,
at the heart of which lies Harry's lifelong dedication of the
camera. Out of This World spans many of the twentieth century's
scenes of conflict, but also contains some of Graham Swift's most
achingly intimate scenes of personal confrontation-scenes that,
powerful and haunting as photographs can be, no photographs can
capture. 'Deserves to be ranked in the forefront of contemporary
literature' New York Times 'Superb, profound' Sunday Times
FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LAST ORDERS AND MOTHERING SUNDAY,
reissued for the first time in Scribner Graham Swift's first
collection of short stories confirms his power to bring an edge of
the extraordinary, the dangerous or the subversive into otherwise
familiar, safe, even comforting settings. On a holiday beach, a
mismatched couple wage a sexually charged war for the devotion of
their literally floundering son. A family doctor, oppressed by his
own domestic insecurities, intimidates an apparent time-wasting
patient. A zookeeper becomes the keeper of a bizarre fixation . . .
While vividly evoking a recognisable English geography, these
startling stories have an eye for the foreign, for the experience
of refugees or for less definable zones of bewilderment and
strangeness. More than one has a touch of the ghostly. Highly
located yet haunted and haunting, they penetrate a hidden world of
human dislocation. 'Graham Swift should be read by everyone with an
interest in the art of the short story' Paul Bailey, Evening
Standard 'A masterful collection of stories' USA Today
WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 1996 The classic edition of one of the
20th Century's finest novels Four men once close to Jack Dodds, a
London butcher, meet to carry out his peculiar last wish: to have
his ashes scattered into the sea at Margate. For reasons best known
to herself, Jack's widow, Amy, declines to join them . . . On the
surface a simple tale of an increasingly bizarre day's outing, this
Booker-prize winning, internationally acclaimed novel is a resonant
and classic exploration of the complexity and courage of ordinary
lives. Intensely local but overwhelmingly universal, faithful to
the fleeting rhythms and accidental eloquence of everyday speech
but also to the timeless truths of life and death, it succeeds in
being comic and heartstopping, affectionate and wise, and in
conferring on its stumbling, disappointed characters an enduring
decency, dignity and depth. 'A surpassing testament to Swift's
vibrant and powerful gifts' The Times 'A triumph . . . a story
about the most fundamental things of all' Evening Standard
FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LAST ORDERS AND MOTHERING SUNDAY,
reissued for the first time in Scribner The classic edition of one
of the 20th Century's finest novels by the winner of The Booker
Prize One summer morning in 1943, lock-keeper Henry Crick finds the
drowned body of a sixteen-year-old boy. Nearly forty years later,
his son Tom, a history teacher, is driven by a bizarre marital
crisis and the provocation of one of his students to forsake the
formal teaching of history-and tell stories . . . Waterland is a
classic of modern fiction: a vision of England seen through its
mysterious, amphibious Fen country; a sinuous meditation on the
workings of time; a tale of two families, startling in its twists
and turns and universal in its reach. Compulsively readable, it is
a novel of resonant depth and encyclopaedic richness, mixing human
and natural history and exploring the tragic forces that take us
both forwards and back. It is also a book about beer, eels, the
French Revolution, the end of the world, windmills,
will-o'-the-wisps, murder, love, education, curiosity
and-supremely-the malign and merciful element of water. 'A quite
brilliant novel' Daily Telegraph 'Inspired' New York Times
|
Tomorrow (Paperback)
Graham Swift
1
|
R287
R195
Discovery Miles 1 950
Save R92 (32%)
|
Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE BESTSELLING MOTHERING SUNDAY AND LAST
ORDERS, and reissued for the first time on the Scribner list, this
is an intensely moving novel about a night that will change one
family beyond recognition. On a June night Paula, a successful art
dealer, lies awake, Mike, her husband of twenty-five years, asleep
beside her. In nearby rooms their twin teenage children, Nick and
Kate, sleep too. The next day, Paula knows, will define all their
lives. As dawn approaches, Paula recalls the years before and after
her children were born. Her story is both a celebration of love
possessed and a moving acknowledgement of the fear of loss, of the
fragilities on which even our most inward sense of who we are can
rest. Graham Swift's apparently most domestic book is that rare
thing in fiction, a novel about happiness, though a happiness that
is not all that it seems. An intimate and tender tale of a
marriage, a family and a home, it begins to embrace big themes:
nature and nurture, the illusory and the real. Praise for Mothering
Sunday: 'Bathed in light; and even when tragedy strikes, it blazes
irresistibly... Swift's small fiction feels like a
masterpiece'Guardian 'Alive with sensuousness and sensuality ...
wonderfully accomplished, it is an achievement' Sunday Times 'From
start to finish Swift's is a novel of stylish brilliance and quiet
narrative verve. The archly modulated, precise prose (a hybrid of
Henry Green and Kazuo Ishiguro) is a glory to read. Now 66, Swift
is a writer at the very top of his game' Evening Standard
'Mothering Sunday is a powerful, philosophical and exquisitely
observed novel about the lives we lead, and the parallel lives -
the parallel stories - we can never know ... It may just be Swift's
best novel yet'Observer
FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LAST ORDERS AND MOTHERING SUNDAY,
reissued for the first time in Scribner Prentis, employed in the
police archives, is becoming confused. His obsession with the
plight of his father, a wartime hero now the mute inmate of a
mental hospital, is alienating him from his wife and children,
while at work he feels under scrutiny from his intimidating boss,
Quinn. Gradually, Prentis suspects that his father's breakdown and
Quinn's menacing behaviour are related and that the connection is
to be found in his father's memoir: 'Shuttlecock'. Shuttlecock is
an intense psychological thriller and much more. With poignant
force and sometimes dark comedy, it links the secrecies and quirks
of domestic life with the enigmas and violence of crime and war. 'A
small masterpiece' The Guardian 'Excellent, profound' Alan
Hollinghurst
FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LAST ORDERS AND MOTHERING SUNDAY,
and reissued for the first time in Scribner, a brilliant collection
of essays, as well as brand new material, that will delight and
intrigue readers. In Making an Elephant, Graham Swift brings
together a richly varied selection of essays, portraits, poetry,
and reflections on his life in writing. Full of insights into his
passions and motivations, and wise about the friends, family, and
other writers who have mattered to him over the years, this is a
revealing and intimate collection. Kazuo Ishiguro advises on how to
choose a guitar, Salman Rushdie arrives for Christmas under guard,
and Ted Hughes shares the secrets of a Devon river. There are
private moments, too, with long-dead writers, as well as musings on
history and memory that readers of Swift's novels will recognize
and love. Praise for Mothering Sunday: 'Bathed in light; and even
when tragedy strikes, it blazes irresistibly... Swift's small
fiction feels like a masterpiece' Guardian 'Alive with sensuousness
and sensuality ... wonderfully accomplished, it is an achievement'
Sunday Times 'From start to finish Swift's is a novel of stylish
brilliance and quiet narrative verve. The archly modulated, precise
prose (a hybrid of Henry Green and Kazuo Ishiguro) is a glory to
read. Now 66, Swift is a writer at the very top of his game'
Evening Standard 'Mothering Sunday is a powerful, philosophical and
exquisitely observed novel about the lives we lead, and the
parallel lives - the parallel stories - we can never know ... It
may just be Swift's best novel yet' Observer
FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LAST ORDERS AND MOTHERING SUNDAY,
reissued for the first time in Scribner For forty years, Willy
Chapman has struck a strange but steadfast bargain between the two
poles of his life: his beautiful but emotionally damaged wife and
the sweet shop he runs on a south London high street. Devoted to
each, he has maintained a delicate, precarious balance. Now, on a
hot summer's day, he attempts to settle his final accounts and
reach an understanding with a third, disruptive element in his
reckoning: his angry, unforgiving daughter. Spanning five decades
and intricately exploring a doomed family triangle, Graham Swift's
first novel already shows the historical scope combined with
intense intimacy that will characterise his work. 'A marvellous
first novel' New Statesman 'Brilliantly chronicled' The Spectator
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Ever After (Paperback)
Graham Swift
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FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LAST ORDERS AND MOTHERING SUNDAY,
reissued for the first time in Scribner Bill Unwin, an academic of
dubious status, has never recovered from the death of his famous
actress wife and is now convalescing from a recent brush with his
own mortality. He has two tales to tell. One, spanning post-war
Paris, 1950s Soho and contemporary sexual and scholarly
entanglements, surveys the muddle of his own life. The other, drawn
from the notebooks of a Victorian ancestor, is the very different
story of Matthew Pearce, a serious-minded man whose happiness is
destroyed by his compulsive search for truth. Bill's recollections
of his beautiful wife, his wayward mother and his philandering
stepfather, his wry reflections on his present plight and his
unexpected bond with the forgotten Matthew combine to form a potent
and moving mental quest. Embracing two centuries and a host of
subjects-from ballet dancers and prehistoric beasts to the
bewildering persistence of love-it asks nothing less than the
eternal question: 'Why should things matter?' 'A perfect piece of
literary art' The Spectator 'Masterfully done' Washington Post
The Sweet-Shop Owner is set during a single June day in the life of
an outwardly unremarkable man whose inner world proves to be
exceptionally resonant. As he tends to his customers, Willy
Chapman, the sweet-shop owner, confronts the specters of his
beautiful and distant wife and his clever, angry daughter, the
history through which he has passed, and the great, unrequited
passion that has tormented him for forty years.
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