The Line of Beauty
What:
The Line of Beauty
Who:
Alan Hollinghurst
In 2004, ThreeThousand just missed out on winning the prestigious Man Booker Prize for fiction. To show that we harbour few, if any, hard feelings, we recommend that you have a glance at the “winner”, The Line of Beauty.
The story focuses on the awkward but charming Nick, who is staying in the Kensington Gardens house of his university friend Toby, whose father Gerald is a prominent member of Margaret Thatcher's '80s government. The novel gives insightful accounts of the privileged, toffee lives of the British aristocracy that part of Nick longs to inhabit. But as Nick becomes more involved in this world, socially and romantically, the un-sustainability of the era becomes heart-breakingly evident.
Author Alan Hollinghurst is one of the most respected novelists in Britain, and is famous for his level of literary detail and observation (almost unimaginable in the SMS and emoticon world we now inhabit). His previous novels The Swimming Pool Library and The Folding Star received excellent receptions, but The Line of Beauty is undeniably his best work.
Format: Book
Motivation: Good with a whiskey in the bath
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