This list of books are ONLY the books that have been ranked on the lists that are aggregated on this site. This is not a comprehensive list of all books by this author.

1. 1. Waterland

   

   "Waterland" is a novel that intertwines the personal history of a history teacher with the social history of the English Fens. The narrative alternates between the past and the present, exploring themes of history, memory, and storytelling. The protagonist's personal story of love, tragedy, and madness is inextricably linked to the history of the Fens, a marshy region in eastern England. The novel also addresses the question of whether history is a cyclical process or a linear one, and how the past influences the present.

   The 1552nd Greatest Book of All Time

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2. 2. Twelve Post War Tales

   

   Twelve Post-War Tales is a collection of short stories that examines how war and its aftermath shape ordinary lives. Through intimate portraits of soldiers, medical professionals, veterans and family members across generations, the book explores memory, loss, resilience and quiet moments of grace.

   The 12504th Greatest Book of All Time

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3. 3. Last Orders

   

   "Last Orders" tells the story of four friends who gather to fulfill the final wish of their recently deceased friend: to have his ashes scattered in the sea. As they journey from London to Margate, each man reflects on their shared past, revealing secrets, regrets, and the complex dynamics of their long-standing friendship. The narrative explores themes of loyalty, mortality, and the enduring bonds of friendship.

   The 13335th Greatest Book of All Time

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4. 4. El Domingo De Las Madres

   

   Set in post-World War I England, the story unfolds on a warm spring day in 1924, focusing on Jane Fairchild, a young maid who works for the Niven family. As the household staff is given the day off to celebrate Mothering Sunday, Jane seizes the opportunity to spend time with her secret lover, Paul Sheringham, the only surviving son of a neighboring family. Their illicit affair is marked by passion and poignancy, as Paul is soon to be married to another woman. The narrative delves into themes of love, loss, and the constraints of social class, while also exploring Jane's reflections on her life and the choices that will shape her future.
5. 5. Světlo Dne

   

   Set against the backdrop of a post-9/11 world, this introspective narrative delves into the life of a private detective grappling with personal loss and existential questions. As he investigates a seemingly straightforward case of infidelity, he is drawn into a deeper exploration of love, betrayal, and redemption. The story unfolds through a series of reflections and memories, revealing the protagonist's inner turmoil and the complexities of human relationships. With a contemplative tone, the narrative weaves together themes of grief, hope, and the search for meaning in a world shadowed by uncertainty.

6. 6. The Sweet Shop Owner

   

   Over the course of a single, sweltering day, an aging English sweet-shop proprietor looks back on his life—his tentative courtship and uneasy marriage, the quiet burdens of responsibility, and the widening rift with his daughter—piecing together how small compromises and silences hardened into estrangement, regret, and a fateful resolve.

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7. 7. Out Of This World

   

   Told in alternating monologues by an estranged father and daughter, it follows a celebrated photojournalist haunted by the violence he has witnessed and by the legacy of a powerful, absent patriarch, while his daughter, shaped by the same family history, struggles to understand and break its hold; as their stories converge from different vantage points, the narrative explores memory, guilt, and the elusive hope of reconciliation.

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8. 8. Here We Are

   

   Set in 1959 Brighton’s seaside variety circuit, this story follows a young magician, his glamorous assistant, and their charismatic compère as onstage illusions give way to an offstage tangle of love, envy, and ambition. Moving between the glittering summer season and decades later, it traces the lingering effects of wartime dislocation, class aspiration, and the elusiveness of self. When a climactic act reshapes their fates, the narrative explores how memory, secrecy, and reinvention can both protect and haunt the lives we build.

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9. 9. Shuttlecock

   

   A police department archivist, drifting toward a breakdown, is drawn into office power games and the murky secrets of missing-person files while fixating on the wartime memoir of his once-lauded father. As pressures at work and home mount, he questions whether heroism and truth are anything more than constructed narratives, especially in the face of silence. His search becomes less about facts than about control, inheritance, and the cost of defining oneself against an uncertain past.

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10. 10. Ever After

    

    A middle-aged academic, reeling from loss and a failed marriage, sifts through the notebooks of a Victorian ancestor grappling with Darwin and the crisis of faith, intertwining past and present as he meditates on grief, identity, and the stories we tell to survive. Through memory, confession, and historical echoes, he pieces together the meaning of love and legacy in the shadow of mortality.

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11. 11. England And Other Stories

    

    A suite of subtly linked short stories traversing contemporary England, following ordinary people at quiet crossroads where memory, loss, love, and chance reshape their lives. With understated twists and precise detail, the collection reveals the hidden dramas beneath familiar landscapes—estrangements and reconciliations, missed chances and small salvations—showing how the past haunts the present and how identity is forged in fleeting, decisive moments.

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12. 12. Wish You Were Here

    

    A former dairy farmer turned seaside caravan park owner receives news that his soldier brother has been killed in Iraq, prompting a long night of reckoning in which he confronts the collapse of his family farm during the foot-and-mouth crisis, the death of his father, his strained marriage to his childhood sweetheart, and the tug of duty and guilt as he prepares to accompany the body home, illuminating the fractures of rural England and the corrosive weight of grief and memory.

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13. 13. Tomorrow

    

    Over the course of a sleepless night in mid-1990s South London, a mother composes a confession to her teenage twins, anticipating the moment when they will learn that the man who raised them is not their biological father, the result of donor insemination after their parents’ struggle with infertility. Lying beside her husband, she retraces their shared past—love, ambition, doubt, and the fragile bonds of family—while weighing what truth will mean for identity, parenthood, and the future that awaits them in the morning.

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14. 14. Hier Zijn We

    
15. 15. Learning To Swim And Other Stories

    

    A series of compact, unsentimental short stories that probe the private lives of ordinary people, revealing how memory, guilt, desire and small moral choices shape relationships and identity. Set mostly in contemporary England, the narratives move between domestic scenes, moments of crisis and quiet revelations, rendered in spare, precise prose that finds emotional intensity in everyday detail. Through recurring themes of loss, secrecy and the passage from youth to adulthood, the collection examines how characters cope with change and the hidden costs of love and loyalty.

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