The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (Flamingo modern classic)

Smith is an incorrigible and defiant young rebel, inhabiting a no-man's land of institutionalised Borstal. Watched over by a phlegmy sunlight, as his steady jog-trot rhythm transports him over an unrelenting, frost-bitten earth, he wonders why, for whom and what he is running.

The film of the story, starring Tom Courtenay and Michael Redgrave, has cult status.

Evocative, realistic and superbly written, the other stories in this collection introduce us to, among others: the war-veteran Uncle Earnest who resorts to the oblivion of the beer pump to fill the passage of empty, loveless days; the school teacher Mr Raynor who relies on voyeurism to reward his exasperated, solitary existence.

"Sillitoe writes with tremendous energy, and his stories simply tear along."
DAILY TELEGRAPH

"All the imaginative sympathy in the world can't fake this kind of thing. It must have been lived in, seen, touched, smelled: and we are lucky to have a writer who has come out of it knowing the truth, and having the skill to turn that truth into art."
NEW STATESMAN

"Graphic, tough, outspoken, informal."
THE TIMES

"A beautiful piece of work, confirming Sillitoe as a writer of unusual spirit and great promise."
GUARDIAN

"A major writer who ought to be read."
MALCOLM BRADBURY