 First edition | |
| Author | Graham Swift |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Allen Lane |
Publication date | August 1980 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 221 |
| ISBN | 0-7139-1247-2 |
The Sweet-Shop Owner is the debut novel of English author Graham Swift. It was published in 1980 to largely favourable reviews. [1]
The book is set on a sunny Friday in June 1974 and describes the routine of what turns out to be the last day in the life of Willy Chapman, the eponymous owner of a South London sweet shop. [2] [3] Central to the book is his relationship with his beautiful and yet distant wife Irene who bore him a daughter on the unspoken agreement that no love would be expressed between them. [4] Interspersed with flashbacks to his earlier life, Willy attempts to justify himself to his estranged unforgiving daughter Dorry via an internal monologue.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a 1964 children's novel by British author Roald Dahl. The story features the adventures of young Charlie Bucket inside the chocolate factory of eccentric chocolatier Willy Wonka.
The Poisoned Chocolates Case (1929) is a detective novel by Anthony Berkeley set in 1920s London in which a group of armchair detectives, who have founded the "Crimes Circle", formulate theories on a recent murder case Scotland Yard has been unable to solve. Each of the six members, including their president, Berkeley's amateur sleuth Roger Sheringham, arrives at an altogether different solution as to the motive and the identity of the perpetrator, and also applies different methods of detection. Completely devoid of brutality but containing a lot of subtle, tongue-in-cheek humour instead, The Poisoned Chocolates Case is one of the classic whodunnits of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. As at least six plausible explanations of what really happened are put forward one after the other, the reader—just like the members of the Crimes Circle themselves—is kept guessing right up to the final pages of the book.
The Red House Mystery is a whodunnit by A. A. Milne, published in 1922. It was Milne's only mystery novel.
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As I Lay Dying is a 1930 Southern Gothic novel by American author William Faulkner. Faulkner's fifth novel, it is consistently ranked among the best novels of the 20th century. The title is derived from William Marris's 1925 translation of Homer's Odyssey, referring to the similar themes of both works.
Graham Colin Swift FRSL is an English writer. Born in London, England, he was educated at Dulwich College, Queens' College, Cambridge, and later the University of York.
The Old Curiosity Shop is one of two novels which Charles Dickens published along with short stories in his weekly serial Master Humphrey's Clock, from 1840 to 1841. It was so popular that New York readers reputedly stormed the wharf when the ship bearing the final instalment arrived in 1841.
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Dissolution (2003) is a historical mystery novel by British author C. J. Sansom. It is Sansom's first published novel, and the first in the Matthew Shardlake Series. It was dramatised by BBC Radio 4 in 2012.
Dark Fire is a historical mystery novel by British author C. J. Sansom. It is Sansom's second novel, released in 2004, and also the second in the Matthew Shardlake Series. Set in the 16th century during the reign of Tudor King Henry VIII, it follows hunchbacked lawyer Shardlake's search to recover the long-lost formula for Greek fire.
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Calm at Sunset, Calm at Dawn is the second novel by American author Paul Watkins. It was published in 1989 by Houghton Mifflin and shared the Encore Award the following year.
A Far Cry from Kensington is a novel by British author Muriel Spark, published in 1988.
A Change of Climate is a novel by English author Hilary Mantel, first published in 1994 by Viking Books. At the time The Observer described it as the best book she had written. It was published in the United States by Henry Holt in 1997 and was recognised by the New York Times Book Review as one of the notable books of that year. The novel has also been identified as one of the best of the 1990s.
The Mosquito Coast is a novel by author Paul Theroux. Published in 1981, it won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was the Yorkshire Post Novel of the Year.
The Lemon Table is the second collection of short stories written by Julian Barnes, and has the general theme of old age. It was first published in 2004 by Jonathan Cape.
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