brilliant book of friendship, hopes and faded dreams and English stoicism. All characters have a voice as it moves along. I've seen the movie and read this many years ago. It was worth the return visit.

Felt a bit disjointed to read as I couldn’t get into his writing style and found it difficult to connect with characters until half way through but was a powerful, realistic and emotive story.

A really good book, very heartwarming. Makes the ordinary into something beautiful. All about death really, but in a way that isn't bleak at all. 4 stars.

Eighth Booker winner read for the year. Beautifully written, with many POV switches, this novel also jumps in time, telling the lives of a group of working class men in an area of London, and to a smaller extent, their womenfolk. As with much English literature, there’s the issue of class. It’s also about ageing and the nature of friendship; and about choices, and whether we actually make any during our lives. I found it repetitive at times, but some beautiful description as the men drive to the seaside to scatter their friend’s ashes.

Maybe I'm just not the target audience for a book about 70 year old men talking about cars, women, and the war, but Last Orders was one of the most boring books that I've ever read. Despite all the characters having different perspectives in the story, they all talk/sound the same and have no personality nor depth.

Overall, this book did not meet my expectations. I'm an avid G Swift reader, but this one ranks last on my list so far. There was no character who I liked or hated enough to stir my interest throughout the novel. These flashes of memory, all jumbled up, on these miniature paragraphs... No description of the battlefield in order to help us get an understanding of the circumstances of Jack's serious injury, a succinct description of Canterbury - "a big building, long and tall, but it's like it hasn't stretched up yet to its full height, it's still growing... Like it's looking down at you, saying, I'm Canterbury Cathedral, who the hell are you?" (214)
Unlike most of the book, the ending was moving, a good parable of friendship. It took me forever to finish this book, I did it because I'm a Swift fan, as I said. Let's see if "Wish You Were Here" is better.

Interesting & well written

I did not get on with the writing, I don't know if it's just me but it feelt clunky and didn't have a good flow to it and I didn't find the story that interesting. Don't think Graham Swift is my kind of writer

In my opinion an example of the film being better than the book! I loved the film when it came out in 2001 and found that the casting was very good (how could you not with those actors?); after having read the book, I think that everyone is simply ideal for the role! I enjoyed the book, though without being totally engrossed in it.

awesome book. Lots of characters intertwined in a seemingly simple plot. So much depth revealed as the book progresses.

I went to Margate and when we were just at the end of the pier, it started raining. Just like in the book.
That said, I didn't like the book at first but after talking about it in class thoroughly, it grew on me.

A novel in many voices, and a tour-de-force of sorts. A group of men set out to scatter the ashes of a recently deceased friend. Along the way, an astonishing number of small (or huge) secrets come to the surface, and the questions that just about any friend's death might logically provoke are given a staggering range of complicated answers. And with all that, often very funny!