Cover of The Swimming-Pool Library
Gay Fiction

The Swimming-Pool Library

by

  • 1988 first published
  • 304 pages
  • 19 editions
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Alan Hollinghurst's The Swimming-Pool Library (1988) is a gay fiction novel. The story is set in London, England and England. Readers will find themes of gay men, interpersonal relations, Sexuality and stonewall Book Awards.

57 Open Library readers have it on their want-to-read list. It has been published in 19 editions across 5 languages.

It runs to roughly 304 pages — 5–6 hours of reading at an average pace.

About The Swimming-Pool Library

A literary sensation and bestseller in both England and America, The Swimming-Pool Library is an enthralling, darkly erotic novel of gay life before the scourge of AIDS; an elegy, possessed of chilling clarity, for ways of life that can no longer be lived with total impunity. “Impeccably composed and meticulously particular in its observation of everything” (Harpers & Queen), it focuses on the friendship of two men: William Beckwith, a young gay aristocrat who leads a life of privilege and promiscuity, and the elderly Lord Nantwich, an old Africa hand, searching for someone to write his biography and inherit his traditions.
Description from Open Library

Awards & lists

Themes, setting & tropes

Genres

Setting

Subjects

  • Gay men
  • Interpersonal relations
  • Sexuality
  • Aristocracy, Social class
  • LGBTQ novels
  • Stonewall Book Awards
  • Lambda Literary Awards
  • Lambda Literary Award Winner
  • Gay lgbtq+
  • England
  • London, England
  • Male homosexuality

Quick answers

Who wrote The Swimming-Pool Library?

The Swimming-Pool Library was written by Alan Hollinghurst and first published in 1988.

What genre is The Swimming-Pool Library?

It is usually shelved as Gay Fiction.

How long is The Swimming-Pool Library?

The median edition has 304 pages, about 5–6 hours of reading at 250 words per minute.

What books are similar to The Swimming-Pool Library?

Readers who like it often enjoy Tipping the Velvet, Mercury and Me and Drôle de garçon.

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