Graham Swift Books

With an introduction by John BurnsideShortlisted for the 1983 Booker prize, winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize.Children, only animals live entirely in the Here and Now. Only nature knows neither memory nor history. But man - let me offer you a definition - is the story-telling animal.Tom Crick is a passionate teacher, but before he is forced into retirement by scandal, he has one last history lesson to deliver: his own. Spanning more than 200 years in the lives of its haunted narrator and his ancestors, Waterland is a visionary tale of England's mysterious Fen country. Taking in eels and incest, ale-making and madness, the discovery of a body and a tragic family romance, this is an extraordinary novel about the heartless sweep of history and man's changing place within it.In the years since its first publication in 1983, Graham Swift's Waterland has established itself as a much-loved classic of twentieth-century British literature. It was shortlisted for the Booker prize, won the Guardian Fiction Prize and has been adapted into a film starring Jeremy Irons and Ethan Hawke.

The Sunday Times bestseller - an intensely moving and beautifully written new novel from the Booker-prize winning author of Last Orders and Waterland

'Graham Swift has shown that he has an authority - of style, characterization, grasp of life. These concentrated enigmatic stories address their subjects with such intelligent conviction and clarity that their ambiguities are not left to be stumbled on by the reader, but are challengingly displayed. They are like James's stories in the way they apply an almost scientific analytical cleverness to the things in life which are forever vague, painful or imponderable' Times Literary Supplement 'The ties that bind people, the good and bad things they do to each other, the happiness, embarrassment and the pain that they cause their friends, their partners, their children - these are Graham Swift's chief concerns. He has a wide range; he can be delicately sensitive or outrageously funny. He is a born storyteller' Daily Telegraph

Set in Southeast England, friendship and love among a group of men whose lives have been intertwined since World War II. When one dies, the survivors are brought together and are forced to take stock of the paths their lives have taken, by choice and by accident, since the war. Winner of the 1996 Booker Prize.

Harry Beech, an aerial photographer, surveys his scarred memories - his career as a photojournalist, abruptly terminated; the death by terrorists of his father, and his marriage. Meanwhile, his daughter, Anna, tries to piece together the fragments of her life.

A collection of new stories from the Booker Prize-winning author of Last Ordersand Waterland

On a midsummer's night Paula lies awake, Mike, her husband of twenty-five years asleep beside her, her two teenage children, Nick and Kate, sleeping in nearby rooms. The next day, she knows, she will reveal a secret that will redefine all their lives

Bill Unwin, in his 50s, looks back over his life and past. From his university rooms, he studies old family diaries from the mid-Victorian era. Excerpts from the diaries throw light on his own life - his feelings of hurt, revenge and family betrayal.

In the sweet shop Willy Chapman was free, absolved from all responsibility, and he ran his sweet shop like his life - quietly, steadfastly, devotedly. It was a bargain struck between Chapman and his beautiful, emotionally injured wife - a bargain based on unexpressed, inexpressible love and on a courageous acceptance of life's deprivation.

Sarah is in prison. Every fortnight she is visited by George, the private eye she employed to observe the final stage of her husband's affair. The visits - and the days between - lead George back into Sarah's past and into events he can picture only too well