Last Orders (336 pages) + As I Lay Dying (256 Pages)

As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner, Review:

"A masterpiece of dark humour" (Daily Express)

"The greatest American writers of the last century were William Faulkner and Saul Bellow...As I Lay Dying and The Adventures of Augie March: it's hard to think of two better novels written in this country in any century" (Philip Roth Observer)

"One of America's greatest writers" (The Times)

"A beautiful novel" (Independent)

"By universal consent of critics and common readers, Faulkner is now recognised as the strongest American novelist of the century, clearly surpassing (Ernest) Hemingway and (Scott) Fitzgerald, and standing as an equal in the sequence that includes Hawthorne, Melville, Mark Twain and Henry James . . . As I Lay Dying may be the most original novel ever written by an American" (Harold Bloom)

Book Description

'Brilliant and compelling - one is constrained to follow to the end' Spectator

Last Orders, Graham Swift

Four men once close to Jack Dodds, a London butcher, meet to carry out his peculiar last wish: to have his ashes scattered into the sea. For reasons best known to herself, Jack’s widow, Amy, declines to join them. On the surface the tale of a simple if increasingly bizarre day’s outing, Last Orders is Graham Swift’s most poignant exploration of the complexity and courage of ordinary lives.

‘Last Orders confirms his reputation as one of the great contemporary chroniclers of landscape and memory’ Observer

‘His finest book to date; emotionally charged and technically superb’ Times Literary Supplement

‘Inspired . . . His finest novel yet’ Guardian

‘A triumph’ Sunday Times

‘Tragic, comic and wonderfully compassionate’ Daily Mail