Breath

When paramedic Bruce Pike is called out to deal with another teenage adventure gone wrong, he knows better than anyone what happened and how. Thirty years before, that dead boy could have been him. Bruce remembers what it was like to be a risk-taking kid, to feel that thrill and that fear . . .

Breath by Tim Winton is the story of Bruce and his best friend Loonie, and the surfing obsession that changed both of their lives. It is about the exhilaration of the sea and the waves, the treacherous addiction to risk, and the intoxicating power of forbidden love.

Part of the Picador Collection.

Review

An absorbing, powerful and deeply beautiful novel ― Observer

A love letter to the sea and a moving coming-of-age story . . . Rapturous ― The Sunday Telegraph

Breath has the sensibility and reach of an epic ― Scotland on Sunday

Full of fizz and a vital poetry of sun, sand, sea and air ― The Independent on Sunday

Breath has the urgent clarity of a story that needed to be told ― The Guardian

About the Author

Tim Winton has published over twenty books for adults and children, and his work has been translated into many different languages. Since his first novel, An Open Swimmer, won the Australian/Vogel Award in 1981, he has won the Miles Franklin Award four times (for Shallows, Cloudstreet, Dirt Music and Breath) and twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize (for The Riders and Dirt Music). Active in the environmental movement, he is the Patron of the Australian Marine Conservation Society. He lives in Western Australia.