Our Take

Francis Spufford follows his Costa Award-winning debut Golden Hill with something entirely different yet equally brilliant. Longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize and named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, NPR, and Slate, Light Perpetual is a profound meditation on life's fragility and preciousness. Spufford's prose is "casually stunning," transforming everyday moments—watching football, setting type, riding a double-decker bus—into revelations about what it means to be alive. The novel's structure, inspired by the British documentary series Up, creates both intimacy and distance, reminding us that these fully-realized lives exist only because Spufford rescued them from oblivion. This approach makes ordinary lives feel miraculous while never losing sight of the bomb that should have ended them. Critics compare it to Kate Atkinson's Life After Life and Virginia Woolf's The Years, but Spufford's voice is distinctly his own—warmly empathetic yet clear-eyed about human failings. Perfect for readers who loved A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, and Atonement by Ian McEwan.