Graham Swift

Waterland is a 1983 novel by Graham Swift. It is considered to be the author's premier novel and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize (a prize Swift finally achieved with Last Orders).

George Webb is a divorced ex-policeman turned private investigator, a man whose prospects seemed ruined not so long ago. Kicked off the force for trying in all the wrong ways to put away the right man, he has recently crossed a line with a client--and upended his own life.

John Rebus van de Edinburgh Police is twee weken verwijderd van zijn pensioen als hij de moord op een Russische kunstenaar moet onderzoeken.

"From the Booker Award winner: a luminous, profoundly moving work of fiction that begins with an afternoon tryst in 1924 between a servant girl and the young man of the neighboring house, but then opens to reveal the whole life of a remarkable woman. Twenty-two-year-old Jane Fairchild, orphaned at birth, has worked as a maid at one English country estate since she was sixteen. And for almost all of those years she has been the secret lover to Paul Sheringham, the scion of the estate next door. On an unseasonably warm March afternoon, Jane and Paul will make love for the last time--though not, as Jane believes, because Paul is about to be married--and 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, 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"--

In this salutation from Earth, the chronicler gives a tour of the planet and introduces those who call it home.

SOS!...SOS!...SOS! The first humans to set foot on Venus make a fatal discovery. The strange creature appears to be growing — into something eerily familiar! The air is leaking from a Martian city's protective dome. To escape death, all the people flee into space... All but one. A space ship is crippled beyond repair. Will the crew remain lost in space forever? Of if anyone answers their distress call — will it be friend or foe? Meet the fearless inhabitants of alien worlds. Travel with bold explorers who dare to face the perils of unknown planets. Strap yourself in for a ride into adventure. You're in for a time that is Out of This World!

"Stories that unite into a ... vision of a country that is both a crucible of history and a maze of contemporary confusions"-- Dust jacket flap.

Freya Daly has always been a smart businesswoman - tough, unemotional, and a killer at negotiations. But for the last few months, she's been bursting into tears for no reason at all. Even though she's sure it must be some kind of rare eye condition, her boss (and father) removes her from her usual task of buying high-rent commercial properties in Boston, and banishes her to a rundown campground in Idaho with orders to obtain the property at any cost. Why the property is so valuable, Freya doesn't know. All alone and far from home, her rare eye condition only gets worse. The one thing that seems to help is the friendship she strikes up with Piper Brody, a little girl who shows Freya that being a kid again can be a lot of fun. Nate Brody is a five-star chef in Cincinnati. Unfortunately, at the moment, he's not in Cincinnati - he's running his father's rundown campground in Idaho. Having made a deathbed promise to his father to find a mysterious lost item before selling the place, Nate is anxious to get back home, where his restaurant and career wait for him....though, maybe not for much longer if he doesn't get back soon. It doesn't help that his eleven-year-old daughter, Piper, loves it in Idaho. For once, he's not working fifteen-hour days, and he and Piper feel like a family. The only nuisance in their Idaho life is the guest in cabin number four. The beautiful woman from Boston has charmed Piper and, for some reason, seems as eager to buy the campground as Nate is to unload it. As Freya and Nate build a friendship, things start to heat up - in more ways than one.

In his first-ever work of nonfiction, the Booker Prize--winning author of such acclaimed novels as Waterland and Last Orders gives us a highly personal book: a singular and open-spirited account of a writer's life.As generous in its scope as it is acute in its observations, Making an Elephant brings together a richly varied selection of essays, portraits, poetry and interviews, full of insights into Graham Swift's passions and motivations, and wise about the friends, family and other writers who have mattered to him over the years. Kazuo Ishiguro advises on how to choose a guitar; Salman Rushdie arrives for Christmas under guard; Caryl Phillips shares a beer with the author at a nightclub in Toronto. There are private moments with his father and with his own younger self, as well as musings on history, memory and imagination that illuminate the work of a writer who, in his fiction, regards it as "a mark of achievement" when his own voice and presence vanish into his characters.A journey through place and time, conversation, encounters and ideas, Making an Elephant brims with charm and candor, an alertness to experience and a true engagement with words--in short, with what it means to believe that writing and reading are an essential part of living.From the Hardcover edition.

Illustrates basic principles of chemistry, using experiments and tricks and showing things that can be made.