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Crossing The Lines: Longlisted for the Booker Prize

Melvyn Bragg

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LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZETHE THIRD NOVEL IN 'ONE OF THE MOST DISTINGUISHED LITERARY SERIES IN RECENT TIMES' (SUNDAY TELEGRAPH)

'An enormously important piece of literature'

Guardian

'Richly detailed and extraordinarily poignant'

Sunday Telegraph

'Expertly told . . . a continuation of a monumental series'

The Times

Set in Britain during the 1950s, this moving and evocative novel follows the intertwined fates of people crossing boundaries in their lives. As a teenager in the small northern town of Wigton, Joe Richardson falls in love with Rachel, just when her life is about to be uprooted. While his parents, Sam and Ellen, face the frontiers of middle age, Joe finds himself drawn by the intoxicating world outside home, and swept into situations that seem beyond his control.

Vividly conveying the spirit of the mid-century and the profound social changes taking place at the time, this is a masterly successor to the award-winning The Soldier's Return and A Son of War.

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Praise for Crossing The Lines: Longlisted for the Booker Prize

  • An expertly told tale which is satisfying in its own right and as a continuation of a monumental series. - Frank Egerton, The TimesEnthralling, a joy to read ... immensely satisfying, written with honesty and imagination ... [it] enriches the reader's life. - Allan Massie, ScotsmanI was bowled over by it ... an enormously important piece of literature about post-war Britain. - A.C. Grayling, GuardianRichly detailed and extraordinarily poignant ... Melvyn Bragg is slowly cementing his place among the aristocrats of English fiction. - David Robson, Sunday TelegraphSharp yet tender, it is an astonishingly confident, slowly unreeled account - Rosemary Goring, Glasgow Herald

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Melvyn Bragg

Melvyn Bragg

Melvyn Bragg was born in Wigton, Cumbria, in 1939. He went to the local Grammar School and then to Wadham College, Oxford. He joined the BBC in 1961, and published his first novel, For Want of a Nail, in 1965.

He left the BBC and continued to write novels which include The Soldier's Return (WH Smith Literary Award), Without a City Wall (Mail on Sunday John Llewellyn Rhys Prize) and Now Is the Time (Parliamentary Book Award 2016). A Place in England, Son of War and Crossing the Lines were all nominated for the Booker Prize. His non-fiction includes The Adventure of English and The Book of Books, and his first memoir, Back in the Day, was published in 2022 to critical acclaim.

He edited and presented The South Bank Show from 1977 and hosted the BBC Radio 4 programme In Our Time from 1998. He has now retired from both. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society and of The British Academy. He was given a Peerage in 1998 and a Companion of Honour in 2017.

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