Bloomsbury presents The Offing by Benjamin Myers, read by Ralph Ineson.
FROM THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE GALLOWS POLE COMES A POWERFUL NEW NOVEL
A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR
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'What a radical thing, these days, to have written a book so full of warmth and kindness ... Gorgeous' - Max Porter, author of Lanny
'Glorious ... Leaves an indelible impression ... A moving and subtle novel in many ways, infused with a love of the minute pleasures in life, and the lasting regrets' - Scotland on Sunday
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One summer following the Second World War, Robert Appleyard sets out on foot from his Durham village. Sixteen and the son of a coal miner, he makes his way across the northern countryside until he reaches the former smuggling village of Robin Hood's Bay. There he meets Dulcie, an eccentric, worldly, older woman who lives in a ramshackle cottage facing out to sea.
Staying with Dulcie, Robert's life opens into one of rich food, sea-swimming, sunburn and poetry. The two come from different worlds, yet as the summer months pass, they form an unlikely friendship that will profoundly alter their futures.
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An i Book of the Year
A Reading Agency Book of the Year
A BBC Radio 2 Book Club Pick
A BBC Radio 4 'Book at Bedtime'
An Observer Pick for 2019

Portrait

Benjamin Myers was born in Durham in 1976. He is the author of ten books, including The Offing, which was an international bestseller and selected for the Radio 2 Book Club; The Gallows Pole, which won the Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction and has been adapted as a BBC series by Shane Meadows; Beastings which was awarded the Portico Prize for Literature, and Pig Iron which won the inaugural Gordon Burn Prize. He has also published non-fiction, poetry and crime novels and his journalism has appeared in publications including the Guardian, New Statesman, TLS, Caught by the River and many more. He lives in the Upper Calder Valley, West Yorkshire. benjaminmyerswriter.com / @BenMyers1