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Waterland

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Waterland

By: Graham Swift
Narrated by: Alex Jennings
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About this listen

 FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LAST ORDERS AND MOTHERING SUNDAY.

One summer morning in 1943, lock-keeper Henry Crick finds the drowned body of a sixteen-year-old boy. Nearly forty years later, his son Tom, a history teacher, is driven by a bizarre marital crisis and the provocation of one of his students to forsake the formal teaching of history—and tell stories . . .

Waterland is a classic of modern fiction: a vision of England seen through its mysterious, amphibious Fen country; a sinuous meditation on the workings of time; a tale of two families, startling in its twists and turns and universal in its reach. Compulsively readable, it is a novel of resonant depth and encyclopaedic richness, mixing human and natural history and exploring the tragic forces that take us both forwards and back. It is also a book about beer, eels, the French Revolution, the end of the world, windmills, will-o’-the-wisps, murder, love, education, curiosity and—supremely—the malign and merciful element of water.

‘A quite brilliant novel’ Daily Telegraph

‘Inspired’ New York Times
©1983 Graham Swift (P)2021 Simon & Schuster, UK Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction French Revolution

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All stars
Most relevant
One of the best novels I have listened and read. A sweeping, epic tale that keeps at it's heart human emotions told through the eyes of an out of time history teacher. Everything is here, class, history, Britain, nature, love. A well told tale, with twists and turns as good as any thriller. Alex Jennings is a superb performer and this is one I will return to time and time again.

DESERVES TO BE A CLASSIC

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So well read and engrossing. Depicts the Fenland landscape with such strong brushstrokes. A fine work.

An engrossing landscape

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I loved the slow drip of information, creating a picture of family life in the fens.
probably the best book I've ever read/ listened to

brilliant story telling

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Read it Now! it's in a class of its own. mysterious and thought provoking, a real escape.

fascinating and bizarre, unputdownable

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Cleverly narrated by a history teacher about to leave his post, this novel is about generations of families intertwined in the fenlands of East Anglia and how the watery landscape forms the backdrop to the their lives, reclaiming the land and washing away their futile attempts to change it. A brilliant portrait of human fragility

Murky, nauseating and brilliant

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