Skip to Main Content

About The Book

A BBC BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOKER PRIZE GEM

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF MOTHERING SUNDAY AND LAST ORDERS, and reissued for the first time on the Scribner list, The Light of Day is both a gripping crime story and a remarkable love story.

On a cold but dazzling November morning George Webb, a former policeman turned private detective, prepares to visit Sarah, a prisoner and the woman he loves. As he goes about the business of the day he relives the catastrophic events of two years ago that have both bound them together and kept them apart.

Making atmospheric use of its suburban setting and shot through with a plain man’s unwitting poetry and rueful humour, The Light of Day is a powerful and moving tale of murder, redemption and of the discovery, for better or worse, of the hidden forces inside us.

Praise for Mothering Sunday:
'Bathed in light; and even when tragedy strikes, it blazes irresistibly… Swift’s small fiction feels like a masterpiece’ Guardian

‘Alive with sensuousness and sensuality … wonderfully accomplished, it is an achievement’ Sunday Times

‘From start to finish Swift’s is a novel of stylish brilliance and quiet narrative verve. The archly modulated, precise prose (a hybrid of Henry Green and Kazuo Ishiguro) is a glory to read. Now 66, Swift is a writer at the very top of his game’ Evening Standard

Mothering Sunday is a powerful, philosophical and exquisitely observed novel about the lives we lead, and the parallel lives – the parallel stories – we can never know … It may just be Swift’s best novel yet’ Observer

‘A real in-depth study of humanity’ Alex Jones, Between the Covers

‘I loved this so much. The form is so interesting. The voice is just so clear and there’s this dryness to him too’ Omari Douglas, Between the Covers

About The Author

© Janus van den Eijnden

Graham Swift was born in 1949 and is the author of eleven novels, two collections of short stories, including the highly acclaimed England and Other Stories, and of Making an Elephant, a book of essays, portraits, poetry and reflections on his life in writing. His most recent novel, Mothering Sunday, became an international bestseller and won The Hawthornden Prize for best work of imaginative literature. With Waterland he won the Guardian Fiction Prize, and with Last Orders the Booker Prize. Both novels were made into films. His work has appeared in over thirty languages.

About The Reader

Product Details

  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio UK (November 25, 2021)
  • Runtime: 8 hours and 9 minutes
  • ISBN13: 9781471187391

Browse Related Books

Raves and Reviews

'Bathed in light; and even when tragedy strikes, it blazes irresistibly… Swift’s small fiction feels like a masterpiece’

– Guardian on Mothering Sunday

‘Alive with sensuousness and sensuality … wonderfully accomplished, it is an achievement’

– Sunday Times on Mothering Sunday

‘From start to finish Swift’s is a novel of stylish brilliance and quiet narrative verve. The archly modulated, precise prose (a hybrid of Henry Green and Kazuo Ishiguro) is a glory to read. Now 66, Swift is a writer at the very top of his game’

– Evening Standard on Mothering Sunday

Mothering Sunday is a powerful, philosophical and exquisitely observed novel about the lives we lead, and the parallel lives – the parallel stories – we can never know … It may just be Swift’s best novel yet’

– Observer on Mothering Sunday

Resources and Downloads

High Resolution Images

More books from this author: Graham Swift

More books from this reader: Alex Jennings