Light Perpetual

Product Description Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2021'Dazzling.' The Times'Exceptional.' Guardian'Brilliant.' Observer'Extraordinary.' Financial TimesNovember 1944. A German rocket strikes London, and five young lives are atomised in an instant.November 1944. That rocket never lands. A single second in time is altered, and five young lives go on - to experience all the unimaginable changes of the twentieth century.Because maybe there are always other futures. Other chances.From the best-selling, prize-winning author of Golden Hill, Light Perpetual is a story of the everyday, the miraculous and the everlasting. Ingenious and profound, full of warmth and beauty, it is a sweeping and intimate celebration of the gift of life. Review 'Francis Spufford has one of the most original minds in contemporary literature.' - Nick Hornby '[Spufford's] writing crackles with energy and glee.' - Robert Douglas-Fairhurst Review Dazzling ... [Spufford is] one of the finest prose stylists of his generation. If his stories grip, his sentences practically glow. -- Robert Douglas-Fairhurst ― The Times Powerful . heartbreaking . [a] boundlessly rich novel. -- James Walton ― Daily TelegraphA brilliant, attention-grabbing, capacious experiment with fiction. -- Kate Kellaway ― Observer Spufford is a tremendously varied and surprising writer ... With exceptional care [he] catches the voices and hopes of five not-dead working-class south Londoners, and the people who change and shape them. -- Alexandra Harris ― Guardian, Book of the Week Moving and effortlessly absorbing. -- Stephanie Cross ― Daily Mail The novel's overarching feat is to resurrect with marvellous vitality not just its central five figures, but six transformative decades of London life. -- Peter Kemp ― Sunday Times Light Perpetual's brilliance lies in the emotion and drama it wrings from the ordinary - but profoundly meaningful - experiences of its protagonists. -- Alex Preston ― Financial Times A glorious act of literary resurrection. -- Claire Allfree ― Evening StandardThis novel simply excels in the stop-time rapture of noticing. -- Boyd Tonkin ― The Arts Desk A tender, endlessly inventive novel. ― Waterstones, Best Fiction Books to Look Forward to in 2021Dazzling . Intimate, absorbing. -- Alice O'Keeffe ― The Bookseller Radiant with hope and grace and courage . . . I loved it. -- Sarah Perry, A vivid and moving tour through 20th-century Britain. -- Laura Battle ― FT, Summer Books An extraordinary novel . . . [Spufford is] such a beautiful writer, casually stunning in his language and perceptions . . . So engrossing . . . Light Perpetual is a miracle, not only of art but of encompossing empathy -- it becomes not only about the terribly brief lives of these fictional children, but of the finitude that bounds all the living and the dead. -- Maureen Corrigan ― Wall Street Journal Book Description From the best-selling, prize-winning author of Golden Hill, a novel of the everyday, the miraculous and the everlasting. From the Back Cover Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2021 'Dazzling.' The Times 'Exceptional.' Guardian 'Brilliant.' Observer 'Extraordinary.' Financial Times November 1944. A German rocket strikes London, and five young lives are atomised in an instant. November 1944. That rocket never lands. A single second in time is altered, and five young lives go on - to experience all the unimaginable changes of the twentieth century. Because maybe there are always other futures. Other chances. From the best-selling, prize-winning author of Golden Hill, Light Perpetual is a story of the everyday, the miraculous and the everlasting. Ingenious and profound, full of warmth and beauty, it is a sweeping and intimate celebration of the gift of life. About the Author Francis Spufford was born in 1964. He is the author of five celebrated books of non-fiction. The most recent, Unapologetic, has been translated into three languages; the one before, Red Plenty, into