The Line of Beauty
British novelist, born 1954. Won the Booker Prize in 2004.
The Line of Beauty is a 2004 novel by Alan Hollinghurst. It won the Booker Prize in 2004.
In LGBTQ+
On 6 of the 16 lists it was eligible for.
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At a glance
- Author
- Alan Hollinghurst
- First published
- 2004
- Length
- 528 pages (UK paperback)
- Awards
- Booker Prize winner, 2004
- Costa Novel Award shortlist, 2004
- Genre
- Literary fiction, LGBTQ+, Class and society, Political
Is The Line of Beauty worth reading?
6 of the 16 best-of lists it could have made include it, among them the Booker Prize and The 100 best books of the 21st century (The Guardian).
| List | Place | Original |
|---|---|---|
| Booker Prize (winners and shortlists) (Booker Prize Foundation, 2004) | Winner | See the list |
| Costa (Whitbread) Novel Award (winners and shortlists) (Costa, 2004) | Shortlist | See the list |
| The 100 best books of the 21st century (The Guardian, 2019) | No. 38 | See the list |
| The 100 best books of the 21st century (The New York Times, 2024) | No. 32 | See the list |
| The 100 best novels of all time (The Guardian, 2026) | No. 89 | See the list |
| The 100 greatest British novels (BBC Culture, 2015) | No. 59 | See the list |
Best edition of The Line of Beauty
The edition we link to is the Picador paperback (2022), 528 pages.
- Publisher
- Picador (paperback, 2022)
- Pages
- 528
- ISBN
- 9781529077209
How critics, prizes and readers rate The Line of Beauty
Prize juries rate it most highly: it earned 56% of the points available on prize lists, against 46% on critics' lists and 0% on readers' and booksellers' lists.
Share of the available points it earned on each kind of list it was eligible for. How the scores work
Books like The Line of Beauty
If you liked The Line of Beauty, try Catch-22, Wolf Hall or Midnight's Children.
