Winner of the Man Booker 2005 and the favourite book as chosen by lovereading's readers . Critically acclaimed as possibly the best novel John Banville has written now you have the opportunity to download an extract and let you make up your own mind.
When Max Morden returns to the coastal town where he spent a holiday in his youth, he is both escaping from a recent loss and confronting a distant trauma.
The Grace family appeared that long-ago summer as if from another world. Drawn to the Grace twins, Chloe and Myles, Max soon finds himself entangled in their lives, which are as unsettling as they are seductive. What ensues will haunt him for the rest of his years and shape everything that is to follow.
Utterly compelling, profoundly moving and illuminating, The Sea is quite possibly the best novel John Banville has ever written.
John Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. His first book, Long Lankin, was published in 1970. His other books are Nightspawn, Birchwood, Doctor Copernicus (which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1976), Kepler (which was awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1981), The Newton Letter (which was filmed for Channel 4), Mefisto, The Book of Evidence (shortlisted for the 1989 Booker Prize and winner of the 1998 Guinness Peat Aviation Award), Ghosts, Athena, The Untouchable, Eclipse and Shroud. He has received a literary award from the Lannan Foundation. He lives in Dublin.
