The Line of Beauty [Paperback]

'Both classic and modern, Alan Hollinghurst... imbues human nature and interaction with a timeless, monumental quality'

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

Must rank among the funniest [novels] ever written about Thatcher's Britain, while remaining one of the most tragically sad. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Luminous... [an] astonishingly Jamesian novel. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

‘Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty is the best new novel I have read for some years.’ --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

‘Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty is the first Booker prize winner in years to deserve it…’ --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

‘... it is perhaps the book that Henry James would have written if he were alive now.’ --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

‘Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty deserves all the praise that has been heaped upon it.’ --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'How to recommend last year's Booker-winner highly enough? It's hard - Hollinghurst's Eighties-set soap is hypnotically good.' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'the best-deserving Booker winner ever' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2004, The Line of Beauty is a perfectly realised tale of our times. 'The work of a great English stylist in full maturity; a masterpiece' Observer

It is the summer of 1983, and young Nick Guest, an innocent in the matters of politics and money, has moved into an attic room in the Notting Hill home of the Feddens: Gerald, an ambitious new Tory MP, his wealthy wife Rachel, and their children Toby and Catherine. Nick had idolized Toby at Oxford, but in his London life it will be the troubled Catherine who becomes his friend and his uneasy responsibility. At the boom years of the mid-80s unfold, Nick becomes caught up in the Feddens’ world. In an era of endless possibility, Nick finds himself able to pursue his own private obsession, with beauty – a prize as compelling to him as power and riches are to his friends.

Alan Hollinghurst is the author of three novels, The Swimming-Pool Library, The Folding Star and The Spell. He had received the Somerset Maugham Award and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for FIction, and he was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1994. He lives in London.