‘Please read this book. It may very well change how you live’ Rachel Clarke
‘Profound?compelling?beautiful’ Nina Stibbe
‘Filled with love?I was spellbound’ Kathryn Mannix
‘Brilliant?so special’ Guardian

An inspiring true story about life, love and letting go

Sarah Perry’s father-in-law David died in the autumn of 2022, only nine days after a cancer diagnosis. He was in some ways a very ordinary man: he loved stamp collecting, fish and chips, comic novels and his local church. Yet as Sarah and her husband Robert nursed David through his final days, they realised how extraordinary he really was.

This loving, clear-eyed and unforgettable book shows how death may be met and understood as a part of life – a universal experience that is terrible and beautiful, intimate and real, sometimes all at once.

A Book of the Year for The Times, Guardian, Financial Times and Observer

‘Beautiful and profound and completely gripping’ Mark Haddon
‘A must-read’ The Times
‘We cannot be but somewhat changed by this remarkable book’ Telegraph
‘This book will be a lifeline for so many people’ Seán Hewitt
‘Perry is in a league of her own’ Sara Collins

‘Beautiful and profound and completely gripping’ MARK HADDON

Sarah Perry’s father-in-law David died in the autumn of 2022, only nine days after a cancer diagnosis. Until then he’d been a healthy and happy man: he loved stamp collecting, fish and chips, comic novels, his local church, and the Antiques Roadshow. He was in some ways a very ordinary man, but as he began to die, it became clear how extraordinary he was.

Sarah and her husband Robert nursed David themselves at home, eventually with the help of carers and visiting nurses. They bathed and cleaned and dressed him, comforted him in pain, sat with him through waking and sleeping, talked to him, sang to him, prayed with him. Day by day and hour by hour, they witnessed what happens to the body and spirit as death approaches and finally arrives.

Death of an Ordinary Man is an unforgettable account of this universal aspect of life. It is not a book about grief: it is a book about dying, and it is a book about family, and care and love.

‘To read this book is a privilege, a gift on the craft of dying’ AMY KEY

Immerse yourself in a story of love and astronomy across two centuries – from the #1 bestselling author of The Essex Serpent.

‘Gorgeous?ethereal’ GUARDIAN
‘Truth, beauty and love?extraordinary’ OBSERVER
‘A book with cosmic reach’ FINANCIAL TIMES
‘You’ll get lost in the pages’ ELLE

Thomas Hart and Grace Macaulay have lived all their lives in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. Though separated in age by three decades, the pair are kindred spirits – torn between their religion and their desire to explore the world. But their friendship is ruptured by the arrival of love.

Over the course of twenty years, Thomas and Grace will find their lives brought back into orbit as a devastating story of passion and scientific adventure unfolds and Aldleigh’s unique mysteries are revealed.

‘The heavens, comets, faith, ghosts, love? This is a book of deep pleasures’
BOOKER JUDGES, 2024

‘Sarah Perry just gets better and better’
INDEPENDENT

‘A romance worthy of Emily Brontë’
WALL STREET JOURNAL

‘One of contemporary fiction’s brightest stars’
GLAMOUR

*A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR THE GUARDIAN, DAILY TELEGRAPH AND DAILY MAIL*

‘Glorious’ OBSERVER
‘Extraordinary’ SARAH HALL
‘Resplendent’ i news
‘Richly layered’ TELEGRAPH
‘Full of unexpected wonders’ LITERARY REVIEW
‘Beautifully nuanced’ SUSAN STOKES-CHAPMAN
‘Gorgeous’ GUARDIAN

Thomas Hart and Grace Macauley are fellow worshippers at the Bethesda Baptist chapel in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. Though separated in age by three decades, the pair are kindred spirits – torn between their commitment to religion and their desire for more. But their friendship is threatened by the arrival of love.

Thomas falls for James Bower, who runs the local museum. Together they develop an obsession with the vanished nineteenth-century female astronomer Maria Veduva, said to haunt a nearby manor. Inspired by Maria, and the dawning realisation James may not reciprocate his feelings, Thomas finds solace studying the night skies. Could astronomy offer as much wonder as divine or earthly love?

Meanwhile Grace meets Nathan, a fellow sixth former who represents a different, wilder kind of life. They are drawn passionately together, but quickly pulled apart, casting Grace into the wider world and far away from Thomas.

In time, the mysteries of Aldleigh are revealed, bringing Thomas and Grace back to each other and to a richer understanding of love, of the nature of the world, and the sheer miracle of being alive.

‘Like Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries and AS Byatt’s Possession, [Enlightenment] is a baroque, genre-bending novel of ideas, ghosts, and hidden histories.’ SUNDAY TELEGRAPH