Alan Hollinghurst Book order (chronological)

A 'Book of the Year' for multiple prestigious publications and featured on Radio 4's 'Book at Bedtime,' this novel is hailed as the best portrayal of contemporary Britain in the past decade, blending humor with deep emotional resonance. Alan Hollinghurst, the Booker Prize-winning author, presents a darkly luminous and wickedly funny exploration of modern England through one man's unsettling experiences. The narrative delves into themes of race, class, theatre, sexuality, love, and the harsh realities of violence. Thirteen-year-old Dave Win visits the sponsors of his scholarship at a local boarding school, where a weekend of games and challenges introduces him to new possibilities while revealing the envy and aggression of their son, Giles. Over the next fifty years, their paths diverge dramatically: Dave becomes a talented actor facing societal challenges, while Giles rises as a powerful and dangerous politician. The story intimately chronicles Dave's journey from schoolboy to student, his first love affairs in London, and his time with an experimental theatre company, culminating in a transformative late-life romance that brings him newfound happiness and a precarious sense of security. The novel debuted at #9 on the Sunday Times Fiction Hardback chart.

Designed to foster critical engagement and interest the specialist and non- specialist alike, each book in the Frick Diptych series illuminates a single work in the Frick's rich collection with an essay by a Frick curator paired with a contribution from a contemporary artist or writer

"A multi-generational story of fathers and sons during the second half of the twentieth century in England"--.

The Sunday Times Novel of the Year 'With The Stranger's Child, an already remarkable talent unfurls into something spectacular' Sunday Times In the late summer of 1913, George Sawle brings his Cambridge friend Cecil Valance, a charismatic young poet, to visit his family home. Filled with intimacies and confusions, the weekend will link the families for ever, having the most lasting impact on George's sixteen-year-old sister Daphne. As the decades pass, Daphne and those around her endure startling changes in fortune and circumstance, reputations rise and fall, secrets are revealed and hidden and the events of that long-ago summer become part of a legendary story, told and interpreted in different ways by successive generations. Powerful, absorbing and richly comic, The Stranger's Child is a masterly exploration of English culture, taste and attitudes over a century of change. 'I would compare the novel to Middlemarch . . . a remarkable, unmissable achievement' Independent 'Magnificent . . . universally acclaimed as the best novel of the year' Philip Hensher

Penelope Fitzgerald's Booker Prize-winning novel of loneliness and connecting is set among the houseboat community of the Thames and has a new introduction from Alan Hollinghurst.

Estate 1983: Nick Guest, vent'anni, è ospite a lungo termine dei Fedden nella prestigiosa magione di Notting Hill, a Londra. Nel loro mondo aristocratico e sofisticato, nei loro rituali e nei loro problemi viene presto coinvolto l'ingenuo Nick che, nell'ingannevole e promettente atmosfera di un'Inghilterra anni Ottanta, scoprirà che la ricerca della bellezza rappresenta per lui un vero e proprio tormento così come sesso, potere e denaro lo sono per i suoi amici. Una storia d'amore con un giovane di colore di umili origini gli farà scoprire di che materia è fatto l'amore, ma sarà la tempestosa vicenda sentimentale con un bellissimo miliardario a cambiargli l'esistenza, costringendolo a mettere in discussione se stesso e la società in cui vive. Sapientemente incastonata nel periodo thatcheriano, la vicenda di Nick attraverso lo sguardo acuto e impietoso di Hollinghurst, si trasforma nell'affresco di un periodo di transizioni e inquietudini cruciali per un intero paese, regalandoci l'opera matura e compiuta di uno dei più significativi scrittori inglesi contemporanei.

Alan Hollinghurst's first novel is a tour de force: a darkly erotic work that centres on the friendship of William Beckwith, a young gay aristocrat who leads a life of privilege and promiscuity, and the elderly Lord Nantwich, who is searching for someone to write his biography.

'A classic of our times ... The work of a great English stylist in full maturity. A masterpiece' Observer

A comedy of sexual manners that follows the interlocking affairs of four men: Robin Woodfield, an architect in his late forties living with his younger lover Justin (a would-be actor) in Dorset; Robin's 22-year-old son Danny, who lives for clubbing and casual sex; and shy Alex