Graham Swift

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 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

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

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

Winner of the 1996 Booker Prize, and now a major new film starring Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren and Michael Caine. 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. For reasons best known to herself, Jack's widow, Amy, declines to join them. On the surface the tale of a simple if increasingly bizarre day's outing, Last Order is Graham Swift's most poignant exploration of the complexity and courage of ordinary lives.

A bold new masterpiece from one of the finest British writers of his generation. This is Booker Prize winner Swift at his best. In 2006, on the Isle of Wight, Jack Luxton receives the news that his soldier brother Tom has been killed in Iraq. It means a crucial journey for Jack- to receive his brother''s remains, but also into his own most secret, troubling memories. Wish you were here is both a gripping account of things that touch and test our human core and a resonant novel about a changing England.

A collection of new stories from the Booker-prize winning author of Last Orders and Waterland; ''a powerful statement about English ways of life and death'' Independent on 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.

These twenty-five new stories mark Graham Swifts return to the short form after seven acclaimed novels and confirm him as a master storyteller. They unite into a richly peopled vision of a country that is both a crucible of history and a maze of contemporary confusions.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 and Lily Hobbs, married to a shirt; Charlie and Don who have seen the docks turn into Docklands; Mr Wilkinson the weirdo next door; Daisy Baker who is terrified of Yorkshire; and Johnny Dewhurst, stranded on Exmoor.Graham Swift steers us effortlessly from the Civil War to the present day, from world-shaking events to the secret dramas lived out in rooms, workplaces, homes. With his remarkable sense of place, he charts an intimate human geography. In doing so he moves us profoundly, but with a constant eye for comedy.Binding these stories together is Swifts grasp of the universal in the local and his 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, growing up, sex, ageing and death.

Angleterre, 30 mars 1924. C’est le dimanche des mères, jour où les aristocrates donnent congé à leurs domestiques pour qu’ils rendent visite à leur famille. Jane, une jeune femme de chambre orpheline

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

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

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 everyones 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.