Graham Swift

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Georgia

Four men gather in a London pub. They have taken it upon themselves to carry out the last orders of Jack Dodds, master butcher, and deliver his ashes to the sea. As they drive towards the fulfillment of their mission, their errand becomes an extraordinary journey into their collective and individual pasts. Braiding these men's voices, and that of Jack's widow, into a choir of sorrow and resentment, passion and regret, Swift creates a testament to a changing England and to enduring mortality.



"Swift has involved us in real, lived lives...Quietly, but with conviction, he seeks to affirm the values of decency, loyalty, love."--New York Review of Books


"A beautiful book...a novel that speaks profoundly of human need and tenderness. Even the most cynical will be warmed by it."--San Francisco Chronicle

Last Orders

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Illinois

California

This novel of love in the world of 1950s vaudeville is a masterwork of literary magic from the Booker Prize-winning author of Last Orders and Mothering Sunday

It is 1959 in Brighton, England, and the theater at the end of the famous 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 a full house every night. And Jack is everyone’s favorite master of ceremonies, holding the whole show together. But as the summer progresses, the drama among the three begins to overshadow their success onstage, setting in motion events that will reshape their lives. Vividly realized, tenderly comic, and quietly shattering, Here We Are is a masterly work of literary magic.

Wisconsin

A Novel

This novel of love in the world of 1950s vaudeville is a masterwork of literary magic from the Booker Prize-winning author of Last Orders and Mothering Sunday It is 1959, in Brighton, England, and the theater at the end of the famous 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 full houses every night. And Jack is everyone's favorite master of ceremonies, holding the whole show together. But as the summer progresses, the offstage drama among the three begins to overshadow their success onstage. Intimately alive, tenderly comic, and quietly shattering, Here We Are is a masterly work of literary magicianship from a true master.

Here We Are

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Pennsylvania

A Washington Post Notable Work of Fiction

On an autumn day in 2006, on the Isle of Wight, Jack Luxton--once a Devon farmer, now the proprietor of a seaside caravan park--receives the news that his brother, Tom, not seen for years, has been killed in combat in Iraq. For Jack and his wife, Ellie, this will have unexpected, far-reaching effects. For Jack in particular it means a crucial journey: to receive his brother's remains and to confront his most secret, troubling memories.
 
A hauntingly intimate, deeply compassionate story about things that touch and test our human core, Wish You Were Here also looks, inevitably, to a wider, afflicted world. Moving toward a fiercely suspenseful climax, it brilliantly transforms the stuff of headlines into a heart-wrenching personal truth.

Wish You Were Here

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Trade paperback size. Pages are clean and tight with no spine creasing 

Minnesota

When his school decides to phase out history from the curriculum, a history teacher abandons his formal lessons to tell his students stories about his native Fen country of East Anglia and its inhabitants

Waterland

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Virginia

The Sweet-Shop Owner

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On a midsummer's night Paula Hook lies awake; Mike, her husband of twenty-five years, asleep beside her; her teenage twins, Nick and Kate, sleeping in nearby rooms. The next day, she knows, will redefine all of their lives. Recalling the years before and after her children were born, Paula begins a story that is both a glowing celebration of love possessed and a moving acknowledgment of the secrets on which our very identities rest. Brilliantly distilling half a century into one suspenseful night, Tomorrow is an eloquent meditation on the mystery of happiness.

Tomorrow

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Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Florida

In his newest novel, acclaimed author Graham Swift marries the erratic devastations of reality with the elusive probability of magic under the lights of vaudeville, a story of delicate illusions where what one chooses to believe can unearth the most revealing connections. It's the summer of 1959, and something magical can be witnessed at the end of the pier in beach town Brighton, England. Jack Robbins, Ronnie Deane, and Evie White are performing in a seaside variety show, starring as Jack Robinson the compere comedian, and The Great Pablo and Eve: a magic act. By the end of the summer, Evie's glinting engagement ring will be flung to the bottom of the ocean and one of the trifecta will vanish forever. All three friends begin their path toward the end of Brighton's pier early in life. Evie and Jack's mothers always trumpeting the support that is trademark of stage mothers, while Ronnie's mother sends her son out in the child evacuations to Penny and Eric Lawrence for safety from the London blitz. It's within the safety and love of Evergrene, the Lawrences' estate, that magic creeps into Ronnie's life for the first time and starts the intricate intertwining of fate, chance, and show business. Magic and reality share the stage in this masterly and devastating story that pulls back the curtain on the power of love, family, and the touchstones of our memories.

Texas

New York

North Carolina

A Romance

From the Booker Prize-winning author, an intensely moving tale that begins with a secret lovers' assignation in the spring of 1924, then unfolds to reveal the whole of a remarkable life. * Don't miss the major motion picture starring Odessa Young, Josh O'Connor, Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù, Colin Firth, and more

"Exquisite ... shows love, lust, and ordinary decency struggling against the bars of an unjust English caste system." --Kazuo Ishiguro, The Guardian

On an unseasonably warm spring day in the 1920s, twenty-two-year-old Jane Fairchild, a maid at an English country house, meets with her secret lover, the young heir of a neighboring estate. He is about to be married to a woman more befitting his social status, and the time has come to end the affair--but events unfold in ways Jane could never have predicted.
 
As the narrative moves back and forth across the twentieth century, what we know and understand about Jane--about the way she loves, thinks, feels, sees, and remembers--expands with every page. In Mothering Sunday, Swift has crafted an emotionally soaring and profoundly moving work of fiction.

Mothering Sunday

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New Jersey

Jane Fairchild, orphaned at birth, has worked as a maid at an English country estate since she was sixteen. And for almost all of those years, she has been the secret lover of Paul Sheringham, the scion of the estate next door. On an unseasonably warm March afternoon, when all the servants have been let off work for the day in order to pay their annual visits to their families, Jane and Paul will make love for the last time in Paul's own bedroom--though not, as Jane believes, because Paul is about to be married.

The events of the day will alter Jane's life forever. As the narrative moves back and forth from 1924 to the end of the century, what we know and understand about Jane, about the way she loves, thinks, feels, sees and remembers, deepens with every beautifully wrought moment. Her story is one of profound self-discovery and, through her, Graham Swift has created an emotionally soaring and deeply affecting work of fiction.

Thrifted library book, slight wear, no damage

Maryland

Massachusetts

Alabama

Utah

#paperback #Iraq #noveloftheyear #soldiers #brothers 

A triumphant return to form from the Booker Prize-winner. On an autumn day in 2006, on the Isle of Wight, Jack Luxton, former Devon farmer and now the proprietor of a seaside caravan park, receives the news that his soldier brother Tom, not seen for years, has been killed in Iraq. For Jack and his wife Ellie this will have a potentially catastrophic impact. For Jack in particular it means a crucial journey-to receive his brother's remains, but also into his own most secret, troubling memories and into the land of his and Ellie's past. 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. Rich with a sense of the intimate and the local, it is also, inescapably, about a wider, afflicted world. Moving towards an almost unbearably tense climax, it allows us to feel the stuff of headlines - the return of a dead soldier from a foreign war - as heart-wrenching personal truth.

Trade paperback. Pages are clean and tight with no spine creasing. 

England and other stories

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#paperback #literaryfiction #bookerprize #romance

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