Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Swimming-Pool Library | 1988 | Alan Hollinghurst | Buy |
| 2 | The Folding Star | 1994 | Alan Hollinghurst | Buy |
| 3 | The Spell | 1998 | Alan Hollinghurst | Buy |
| 4 | The Line of Beauty | 2004 | Alan Hollinghurst | Buy |
| 5 | The Stranger’s Child | 2011 | Alan Hollinghurst | Buy |
| 6 | The Sparsholt Affair | 2017 | Alan Hollinghurst | Buy |
| 7 | Our Evenings | 2024 | Alan Hollinghurst | Buy |
Alan Hollinghurst’s seven novels trace a consistent set of concerns across nearly four decades of writing. From The Swimming-Pool Library in 1988 to Our Evenings in 2024, his fiction returns again and again to questions of desire, class, and belonging in English life.
The Swimming-Pool Library and The Line of Beauty are probably his best-known works. The former is set in 1980s London and looks back to the 1920s, while the latter follows a young man’s life among the political elite during the Thatcher years. His later novels, including The Stranger’s Child and The Sparsholt Affair, cover even longer stretches of time, tracing how relationships and reputations shift across generations.