Contemporary fiction titles are those which focus on the present or near past. Stories rooted in the current cultural, social, and political landscape which feature characters we can all recognise.
Contemporary Fiction Books
Faber & Faber His Illegal Self
Book SynopsisSeven-year-old Che was abandoned by his radical Havard-student parents during the upheaval of the 1960s, and since then has been raised in isolated privilege by his New York grandmother. He yearns to see or hear news of his famous outlaw parents, but his grandmother refuses to tell him anything.When a woman named Dial comes to collect Che, it seems his wish has come true: his mother has come back for him. But soon, they too are on the run, and Che is thrown into a world where nothing is what it seems.
£9.49
Faber & Faber Travels in the Scriptorium
Book SynopsisAuster''s existential tale of Mr Blank from the author of contemporary classic The New York Trilogy: ''a literary voice for the ages'' (Guardian) An old man sits in a room, with a single door and window, a bed, a desk and a chair. Each day he awakes with no memory, unsure of whether or not he is locked into the room. Attached to the few objects around him are one-word, hand-written, labels and on the desk is a series of vaguely familiar black-and-white photgraphs and four piles of paper. Then a middle-aged woman called Anna enters and talks of pills and treatment, but also of love and promises.Who is this Mr Blank, and what is his fate? What does Anna represent from his past - and will he have enough time to ever make sense of the clues that arise?After the huge success of The Brooklyn Follies, Travels in the Scriptorium sees Auster return to more metaphysical territory. A dark puzzle, and a game that implicates both readeTrade Review"'... as much a novel about the semantics of storytelling; Mr Blank remains a perfect study of confusion and memory that says everything about Auster's brilliance.' Metro"
£10.44
Faber & Faber Summer Blonde
Book SynopsisPicking up from his earlier collection Sleepwalk, and the precursor to his award-winning Shortcomings, the four stories in Summer Blonde are quintessential Tomine. Memorably featuring characters such as Neil, Carlo and Hillary Chan, among others, these are beautiful and haunting tales that illustrate with great sympathy the loneliness and bleak humour of modern life.
£15.29
Faber & Faber Red Earth and Pouring Rain
Book SynopsisAn epic tale of nineteenth-century India - of Sanjay, a poet, and Sikander, a warrior; of hoofbeats thundering through the streets of Calcutta; of great wars and love affairs and a city gone mad with poetry. Woven into it are the adventures of a young Indian criss-crossing America in a car with his friends.''A dazzling first novel . . . Not merely drawing on myth but making it.'' Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Sunday Times''Marvellous and compelling.'' Charles Palliser''A brilliant novel of wondrous conjuring and stunning import.'' John Hawkes''One of the finest Indian novels of the decade.'' Shashi Tharoor
£10.79
Faber & Faber Love and Longing in Bombay
Book SynopsisSet in contemporary India, Love and Longing in Bombay confirms Vikram Chandra as one of today''s most exciting young writers. In five haunting tales he paints a remarkable picture of Bombay - its ghosts, its passions, its feuds, its mysteries - while exploring timeless questions of the human spirit.''When Midnight''s Children first arrived on the scene, it became necessary to revaluate stories from and about India. With Vikram Chandra''s collection - his second book - it is time to take stock again . . . Breathtaking.'' Observer
£9.49
Faber & Faber Capital
Book Synopsis** From the author of The Wall **''Effortlessly brilliant . . . hugely moving and outrageously funny.'' Observer''A treat to read.'' The Times''The great London novel of the twenty-first century.'' New Statesman''Brimming with perception, humane empathy and relish . . . a capital achievement.'' Sunday TimesA moving, funny and insightful story of one London street, its inhabitants, and a world-changing event.The residents of Pepys Road, London - a banker and his shopaholic wife, an elderly woman dying of a brain tumour, the Pakistani family who run the local shop, the young football star from Senegal and his minder - all receive anonymous postcards with a simple message: We Want What You Have. Who is behind it? What do they want?As the mystery of the postcards deepens, the world around Pepys Road is turned upside down by the financial crash and a
£10.44
Faber & Faber Sulphuric Acid
Book SynopsisSulphuric Acid tells the story of a reality TV death camp, which has become the nation''s obsession - an amoral spectacle played out through the media. It is a blackly funny and shocking satire on the modern predilection for reality television and celebrity, in which the audience at home develops a taste for blood.Trade Review"'It's always fun to take a journey inside her extraordinary Belgian brain.' Dan Rhodes"
£9.49
Faber & Faber Julius Winsome
Book SynopsisJulius Winsome lives in a cabin in the hunting heartland of the Maine woods, with only his books and his dog for company. That is until the morning he finds that his dog has been shot dead - and not by accident. Gerard Donovan weaves an extraordinary tale of revenge that is also a tender and heartbreaking paean to lost love. Narrated by the unforgettable voice of Julius himself - at once compassionate, vulnerable and threatening - it reads like a timeless, lost classic.Trade Review"'Clear genius... brilliant and original.' Independent"
£9.49
Faber & Faber Northline
Book SynopsisFleeing Las Vegas and her abusive boyfriend, Allison Johnson moves to Reno, but finds herself haunted by the mistakes of her past, and lacking any self-belief. Her only comfort seems to come from the imaginary conversations she has with her hero, Paul Newman. But, as life crawls on, small acts of kindness do start to reveal themselves and slowly the chance of a new life begins to emerge. Full of memorable characters and imbued with a beautiful sense of yearning, Northline is an extraordinary portrait of small-town America and an emotional tour de force.
£9.49
Faber & Faber The Underground Man
Book SynopsisOne of the most acclaimed novels of recent times, The Underground Man is the fictionalised diary of a deeply eccentric English aristocrat. The duke has just completed a network of tunnels beneath his estate. His health is failing, but his imagination seems to know no bounds. And while he spends more time underground and retreats ever deeper into the darker corners of his house there are some ghosts that demand to be acknowledged and some memories which insist on making themselves known.Trade Review"'Quite simply, astonishing.' Observer"
£9.49
Faber & Faber In the Crowd
Book SynopsisThe Heysel Stadium, Brussels, May 1985. Jeff and Tonino, two Parisian football fans with serious drinking habits, are on their way to the European Cup final between Liverpool and Juventus. So too are newlyweds Tana and Francesco; troubled young couple Gabriel and Virginie; and Liverpool supporter Geoff Andrewson, travelling with his brothers.As these four groups of characters cross paths, and as the excitement of the build-up gives way to horrific tragedy, their lives and relationships are changed forever.
£9.49
Faber & Faber Orchid Blue
Book SynopsisJanuary 1961, and the beaten, stabbed and strangled body of a nineteen year old Pearl Gambol is discovered, after a dance the previous night at the Newry Orange Hall. Returning from London to investigate the case, Detective Eddie McCrink soon suspects that their may be people wielding influence over affairs, and that the accused, the enigmatic Robert McGladdery, may struggle to get a fair hearing. Presiding over the case is Lord Justice Curran, a man who nine years previously had found his own family in the news, following the murder of his nineteen year old daughter, Patricia.In a spectacular return to the territory of his acclaimed, Booker longlisted The Blue Tango, Eoin McNamee''s new novel explores and dissects this notorious murder case which led to the final hanging on Northern Irish soil.
£9.25
Faber & Faber Gillespie and I
Book SynopsisAs she sits in her Bloomsbury home, with her two birds for company, elderly Harriet Baxter sets out to relate the story of her acquaintance, nearly four decades previously, with Ned Gillespie, a talented artist who never achieved the fame she maintains he deserved.Back in 1888, the young, art-loving Harriet arrives in Glasgow at the time of the International Exhibition. After a chance encounter she befriends the Gillespie family and soon becomes a fixture in all of their lives. But when tragedy strikes - leading to a notorious criminal trial - the promise and certainties of this world all too rapidly disintegrate into mystery and deception...
£9.99
Faber & Faber The Wasted Vigil
Book SynopsisA Russian woman named Lara arrives in Afghanistan at the house of Marcus Caldwell, an Englishman and widower living in the shadow of the Tora Bora mountains. Marcus''s daughter, Zameen, may have known Lara''s brother, a Soviet soldier who disappeared in the area many years previously. But like Marcus''s wife, Zameen is dead; a victim of the age in which she was born. In the days that follow, further people arrive at the house: two Americans who have spent much of their adult lives in the area; a young Afghan teacher; and a radicalised young man intent on his own path. And Nadeem Aslam paints a moving, beautiful and powerful portrait of a land and a people torn apart through love and war.
£9.49
Faber & Faber Man in the Dark
Book SynopsisAuster''s haunting exploration of war in a post 9/11 world from the author of contemporary classic The New York Trilogy: ''a literary voice for the ages'' (Guardian) ''I am alone in the dark, turning the world around in my head as I struggle through another bout of insomnia, another white night in the great American wilderness.''Seventy-two-year-old August Brill is recovering from a car accident in his daughter''s house in Vermont. When sleep refuses to come, he lies in bed and tells himself stories, struggling to push back thoughts about things he would rather forget - his wife''s recent death and the horrific murder, in Iraq, of his granddaughter''s boyfriend, Titus. Brill, a retired book critic, imagines a parallel world in which America is not at war with Iraq but with itself. In this other America the Twin Towers did not fall on 9/11, and the 2000 election results led to secession, as state after state pulled away from the union and
£9.49
Faber & Faber How It Is
Book SynopsisPublished in French in 1961, and in English in 1964, How It Is is a novel in three parts, written in short paragraphs, which tell (abruptly, cajolingly, bleakly) of a narrator lying in the dark, in the mud, repeating his life as he hears it uttered - or remembered - by another voice. Told from within, from the dark, the story is tirelessly and intimately explicit about the feelings that pervade his world, but fragmentary and vague about all else therein or beyond.Together with Molloy, How It Is counts for many readers as Beckett''s greatest accomplishment in the novel form. It is also his most challenging narrative, both stylistically and for the pessimism of its vision, which continues the themes of reduced circumstance, of another life before the present, and the self-appraising search for an essential self, which were inaugurated in the great prose narratives of his earlier trilogy. she sits aloof ten yards fifteen yards she looks up looks
£9.49
Faber & Faber Drown
Book SynopsisOriginally published in 1997, Drown instantly garnered terrific acclaim. Moving from the barrios of the Dominican Republic to the struggling urban communities of New Jersey, these heartbreaking, completely original stories established Díaz as one of contemporary fiction''s most exhilarating new voices.
£9.49
Faber & Faber Zed
Book Synopsis''Fun and erudite'' Sunday Times''Snort-inducingly funny'' Daily Mail''One of the cleverest books you''ll read this year'' TelegraphEvery system, however immaculate, has a few little glitches.The latest in domestic tech should have predicted that businessman George Mann was about to murder his family. But instead it crashes and leads to the wrong man being caught and punished.Are there gremlins in digital giant Beetle's ubiquitous wearable tech, talking fridges and Dickensian droids? Have they been hacked, or is something even more sinister going on?With the clock ticking philandering Beetle CEO Guy Matthias, conflicted national security agent Eloise Jayne, depressed journalist David Strachey, and secretive hacker Gogol each try to uncover the truth in a darkly funny and horribly recognisable world only days ahead of our own.Witty and horrifyingly relevant . . . Full of dark hu
£8.54
Faber & Faber Cedilla
Book SynopsisCedilla continues the history of John Cromer (adventures sounds rather too hectic) begun by Pilcrow, described by the London Review of Books as peculiar, original, utterly idiosyncratic and by the Sunday Times as truly exhilarating. These huge and sparkling books are particularly surprising coming from a writer of previously (let''s be tactful) modest productivity, who had seemed stubbornly attached to small forms. John Cromer is the weakest hero in literature -- unless he''s one of the strongest. In Cedilla he launches himself into the wider world of mainstream education, and comes upon deeper joys, subtler setbacks. The tone and texture of the two books is similar, but their emotional worlds are very different. The slow unfolding of themes is perhaps closer to Indian classical music than the Western tradition -- raga/saga, anyone? This isn''t an epic novel as such things are normally understood, to be sure. It contains no physical battles and the bare minimum of trav
£11.69
Faber & Faber The Lost Country
Book SynopsisBilly Edgewater, discharged from the Navy and touched by a rising desperation, sets out hitchhiking home to East Tennessee, where his father is slowly dying. On the road, separately, are Sudy and Bradshaw, brother and sister, and a one-armed con man named Roosterfish. All, in one way or another, have their pasts and futures embroiled with D.L. Harkness, a predator in all the ways there are. Hounded at every turn by scams, vigilantes, grievous loss, and violence, Edgewater navigates the long road home, searching for a place that may be nothing more than memory.Hailed by the New York Times Book Review as a seemingly effortless storyteller', with this novel William Gay once again shows why his work is often talked about alongside the great Southern novelists, William Faulkner, Flannery O''Connor and Cormac McCarthy.
£13.49
Faber & Faber An Elegy for Easterly
Book SynopsisWinner of the Guardian First Book Award, and shortlisted for the Frank O''Connor Short Story Award, this is an unforgettable collection of powerful stories by a stunning young voice from Zimbabwe.A woman in a township is surrounded by dusty children but longs for a baby of her own; an old man finds that his job making coffins at No Matter Funeral Parlour brings unexpected riches; a politician''s widow stands quietly by at her husband''s funeral as his colleagues bury an empty casket.Petina Gappah''s characters may have ordinary hopes and dreams, but they are living in a world where a loaf of bread costs half a million dollars - a country expected to have only four presidents in a hundred years. In this spirited debut, Gappah evokes the resilience and inventiveness of the people who struggle to live under Robert Mugabe''s regime whilst also battling issues common to all people everywhere: failed promises, unfulfilled dreams, and the yearning for somethin
£9.49
Faber & Faber A Gate at the Stairs
Book Synopsis''You can sit back and have the time of your life reading A Gate at the Stairs.'' ObserverOne of the funniest writers alive' Dave EggersHilarious and distressing, entertaining and wise'' Roddy Doyle''Moore's a writer you don't quit.' Guardian***SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORANGE PRIZE FOR FICTION***A startlingly funny, inventive novel from one of America''s most brilliant writers. With America quietly gearing up for war in the Middle East, twenty-year-old Tassie Keltjin, a ''half-Jewish'' farmer''s daughter from the plains of the Midwest, has come to university - escaping her provincial home to encounter the complex world of culture and politics.When she takes a job as a part-time nanny to a couple who seem at once mysterious and glamorous, Tassie is drawn into the life of their newly-adopted child and increasingly complicated household. As her past becomes increasingly alien to her - her parents seem older when
£9.49
Faber & Faber Collected Stories 19972010
Book SynopsisOver the course of the last 12 years, Hanif Kureishi has written short fiction. The stories are, by turns, provocative, erotic, tender, funny and charming as they deal with the complexities of relationships as well as the joys of children.This collection contains his controversial story Weddings and Beheadings, a well as his prophetic My Son the Fanatic, which exposes the religious tensions within the muslim family unit. As with his novels and screenplays, Kureishi has his finger on the pulse of the political tensions in society and how they affect people''s everyday lives.
£13.49
Faber & Faber The Book of Memory
Book SynopsisMoving between the vibrant townships of the poor and the suburbs and country retreats of the rich, The Book of Memory is a compelling, contemporary tale of love, obsession and the cruelty of fate. Memory is an albino woman, languisihing in prison in Harare, Zimbabwe. At nine years old she was adopted by a wealthy man -- a man whose murder she is now convicted of. Facing the death penalty, she tells the story os the chain of events that brought her there. But is everything exactly as she remembers it?
£9.49
Faber & Faber The Lacuna
Book SynopsisFROM THE WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTIONTWICE WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTIONTHE MULTI-MILLION COPY BESTSELLING AUTHOR''Lush.'' Sunday Times''Superb.'' Daily Mail''Elegantly written.'' Sunday TelegraphFrom award-winning and internationally bestselling author of Demon Copperhead and Flight Behaviour, The Lacuna is the heartbreaking story of a man torn between the warm heart of Mexico and the cold embrace of 1950s America in the shadow of Senator McCarthy.Born in America and raised in Mexico, Harrison Shepherd is a liability to his social-climbing flapper mother, Salome. When he starts work in the household of Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo - where the Bolshevik leader, Lev Trotsky, is also being harboured as a political exile - he inadvertently casts his lot with art, communism and revolution. A compulsive diarist, he records and relates
£9.49
Faber & Faber Parrot and Olivier in America
Book SynopsisOlivier is an aristocrat, the traumatized child of survivors of the French Revolution. Parrot the son of an itinerant printer who always wanted to be an artist but has ended up a servant. Born on different sides of history, their lives will be brought together by their travels in America.When Olivier sets sail for America, ostensibly to study its prisons but in reality to save his neck from one more revolution - Parrot is sent with him, as spy, protector, foe and foil. As the narrative shifts between the perspectives of Parrot and Olivier, and their picaresque travels together and apart - in love and politics, prisons and the world of art - Peter Carey explores the adventure of American democracy, in theory and in practice, with dazzling wit and inventiveness.
£10.44
Faber & Faber New Irish Short Stories
Book SynopsisEdited by Joseph O''Connor (author of Star of the Sea and Ghost Light) New Irish Short Stories is a stunning collection from a fascinating variety of writers, both new and established. Featuring, among many others, William Trevor and Roddy Doyle, Rebecca Miller and Richard Ford, Christine Dwyer Hickey and Colm Toibin, it shows the short story to be a vibrant, thriving form and one that should continue to be celebrated and encouraged.This collection follows the two acclaimed editions David Marcus edited for Faber in 2004-5 and 2006-7.
£11.69
Faber & Faber SelfHelp
Book Synopsis''America''s first lady of darkness and mirth.'' Guardian''I'd rather spend time with her than anyone else on Earth.'' Nicole Flattery''Lorrie Moore is one of my very favourite writers.'' Monica HeiseyComplicated, awkward, funny, cruel, heartbroken, mysterious; Self-Help forms an idiosyncratic guide to female existence which is just as relevant today as it was 30 years ago. These stories are modern America at its most real, with characters sharing thoughts and experiences they could have borrowed from our own lives. This is how to deal with divorce, adultery, cancer, how to talk to your mother or become a writer, the Lorrie Moore way.
£9.49
Faber & Faber Welcome to Lagos
Book SynopsisShortlisted for the RSL Encore Award 2018Five runaways ride the bus from Bayelsa to a better life in a megacity.They are unlikely allies -- a private, a housewife, an officer, a militant and a young girl. They share a need for escape and a dream for the future. Soon, they will also share a burden none of them expected, but for now, the five sit quietly with their hopes, as the billboards fly past and shout: Welcome to Lagos.
£9.49
Faber & Faber Night
Book SynopsisA haunting novel from the iconic Irish legend behind The Country Girls trilogy.''The taboo-breaking, the fabulous prose there''s no one like Edna O''Brien.'' Anne Enright''Novels of heart-breaking empathy, rigorous honesty and peerless beauty.'' Eimear McBride''A profound intelligence spurred on by a tangible, fizzing joy.'' Megan Nolan''Brilliant and brave.'' Ann Patchett''A revolution.'' John Banville''Glittering energy.'' Colm TóibínEdna O''Brien''s chilling spectre of a novel, Night, is narrated by one of her most memorable characters, Mary Hooligan. Lying on a four-poster bed, unable to sleep, she recounts her (mis)adventures, courtships, and sexual encounters of the most transgressive kind in a narrative voice of blistering, radical originality.With an introduction by Andrew O''Hagan
£999.99
Faber & Faber One Three One A TimeShifting Gnostic Hooligan
Book SynopsisWelcome to Sardinia: my hell, my home, my prison, my meditation these past sixteen years. What a place to die. But that''s precisely why I was back.When drugged-up Time Traveller and ''80s musical burnout Rock Section and his fellow English hooligans get kidnapped during Italia ''90, there are ruinous implications. But now Rock has returned to Sardinia one final time to settle some scores and uncover the truth. He believes only Dutch cult leader Judge Barry Hertzog, still incarcerated on the island for the crime, can provide the answers. But through prescription drugs, the persistence of his driver Anna and a quest for the hidden ancient doorways strewn around Sardinia''s only highway, the 131, Rock will discover that a greater truth awaits him. Judgement, consequences, hoodwinking on a grand scale, Gnosticism versus agnosticism...131 is a Gnostic whodunit that pursues readers'' memories of all previous fiction into a peat bog and impales them with seven
£13.49
Faber & Faber The Meeting Point
Book SynopsisWhen Euan and Ruth set off with their young daughter to live in Bahrain, it is meant to be an experience and adventure they will cherish. But on the night they arrive, Ruth discovers the truth behind the missionary work Euan has planned and feels her world start to crumble. Far from home, and with events spiralling towards war in nearby Iraq, she starts to question her faith - in Euan, in their marriage and in all she has held dear.With Euan so often away, she is confined to their guarded compound with her neighbours and, in particular, Noor, a troubled teenager recently returned to Bahrain to live with her father. Confronted by temptations and doubt, each must make choices that could change all of their lives for ever.Compelling, passionate and deeply resonant, The Meeting Point is a novel about idealism and innocence, about the unexpected turns life can take and the dangers and chances that await us.
£9.49
Faber & Faber The Illuminations
Book Synopsis** Order Andrew O''Hagan''s new novel, Caledonian Road, now ** From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Mayflies and Caledonian Road How much do we keep from the people we love? Why is the truth so often buried in secrets? Can we learn from the past or must we forget it?Standing one evening at the window of her house by the sea, Anne Quirk sees a rabbit disappearing in the snow. Nobody remembers her now, but this elderly woman was in her youth a pioneer of British documentary photography. Her beloved grandson, Luke, now a captain with the Royal Western Fusiliers, is on a tour of duty in Afghanistan, part of a convoy taking equipment to the electricity plant at Kajaki. Only when Luke returns home to Scotland does Anne''s secret story begin to emerge, along with his, and they set out for an old guest house in Blackpool where she once kept a room.
£9.49
Faber & Faber I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home
Book Synopsis''A triumph of tone and, ultimately, of the imagination.'' Guardian ''Strange and hilarious and so, so sharp.'' Monica Heisey ''When a book reaches out and speaks to a reader so clearly, one can hardly do anything but recommend it in the highest terms.' SpectatorA New Statesman, New Yorker and Financial Times Book of the Year. From one of the most celebrated imaginations in American literature, Lorrie Moore's new novel is a magic box of longing and surprise.High up in a New York City hospice, Finn sits with his beloved brother Max, who is slipping from one world into the next. But when a phone call summons Finn back to a troubled old flame, a strange journey begins, opening a trapdoor in reality. It will prompt a questioning of life and death, grief and the past, comedy and tragedy, and the diaphanous separations that lie between them all.''Moore writes with such panache, such extraord
£15.29
Faber & Faber Bark
Book SynopsisShortlisted for the Frank O''Connor International Short Story AwardIn these eight masterful stories, Lorrie Moore explores the passing of time and summons up its inevitable sorrows and comic pitfalls. Gimlet-eyed social observation, the public and private absurdities of American life, irony and half-cracked love wend their way through these stories, in which Moore is always tender, never sentimental and often heartbreakingly funny.
£9.49
Faber & Faber The Dream of the Celt
Book SynopsisAs The Dream of the Celt opens, it is the summer of 1916 and Roger Casement awaits the hangman in London''s Pentonville Prison. Dublin lies in ruins after the disastrous Easter Rising led by his comrades of the Irish Volunteers. He has been caught after landing from a German submarine. For the past year he has attempted to raise an Irish brigade from prisoners of war to fight alongside the Germans against the British Empire that awarded him a knighthood only a few years before. And now his petition for clemency is threatened by the leaking of his private diary and his secret life as a gay man...Mario Vargas Llosa, with his incomparable gift for powerful historical narrative, takes the reader on a journey back through a remarkable life dedicated to the exposure of barbaric treatment of indigenous peoples by European predators in the Congo and Amazonia. Casement was feted as one of the greatest humanitarians of the age. Now he is about to die ignominiously as a traitor.Trade ReviewMario Vargas Llosa's semi-fictionalised account of Casement's life portrays a heroic, if ultimately tragic champion of oppressed peoples ... Absorbing. Sunday Telegraph A novel by the Nobel prizewinner Mario Vargas Llosa might seem ripe for cult status, when it's subject is the life of Roger Casement. The Times Extraordinary historical novel ... Ingenious ... Vargas Llosa's literary realism seems so natural, with no lyrical outbursts, no pointless cleverness. His research is meticulous, whether through travel or through libraries. But it is always embodied in polt and character ... This stimulating biographical novel, written with fiction's best freedoms. Independent Gripping ... Vargas Llosa tells is with panache ... There is much to enjoy in this novel. FT
£10.44
Faber & Faber Silent House
Book SynopsisWinner of the Nobel Prize for LiteratureOne of the greatest and most prophetic of political novelists.' Guardian Books of the YearInspired and impassioned' New York TimesPowerful, assured and engaging.' Irish Times A family gathers in the shadow of a revolution, until an outsider brings the action to their doorAs the political tension from Turkey's tumultuous struggle for modernity builds, an old widow Fatma waits with her faithful servant Recep for her grandchildren to descend for their annual visit. Faruk, a failed historian; his sensitive leftist sister, Nilgun; and Metin, a high school student who lives the fast life of the nouveaux riches while dreaming of escape.The arrival of Recep's nephew Hassan, who has recently fallen in with right-wing extremists, draws the family into the growing political cataclysm. As the country wavers towards tragedy, the family are forced to confront their past and decide where they stand.
£10.44
Faber & Faber How I Became a North Korean
Book SynopsisAt the lawless border between North Korea and China, three young lives converge in the hope of a better future.Yongju is an accomplished student from a prominent but recently disgraced family; Jangmi has had to fend for herself since childhood, and now has her unborn child to protect; Danny is a Chinese-American teenager who yearns for the China of his childhood. But danger is everywhere: government informants, thieves, people smugglers, abductors and even missionaries are a threat. As the three form an adopted family in the struggle to survive, will they reach the safety and freedom that China seems to offer?Inspired by the author's own experiences while working in the border area, How I Became a North Korean is a powerful story of peril and hope.
£9.49
Faber & Faber The Brooklyn Follies
Book SynopsisAuster''s tale of family dynamics past and present from the author of contemporary classic The New York Trilogy: ''a literary voice for the ages'' (Guardian) ''I was looking for a quiet place to die. Someone recommended Brooklyn, and so the next morning I travelled down there from Westchester to scope out the terrain . . .''So begins Paul Auster''s remarkable novel, The Brooklyn Follies. Set against the backdrop of the contested US election of 2000, it tells the story of Nathan and Tom, an uncle and nephew double-act. One in remission from lung cancer, divorced, and estranged from his only daughter, the other hiding away from his once-promising academic career, and, indeed, from life in general.Having accidentally ended up in the same Brooklyn neighbourhood, they discover a community teeming with life and passion. When Lucy, a little girl who refuses to speak, comes into their lives, there is suddenly a bridge from their pasts tha
£9.49
Faber & Faber My Fathers Ghost is Climbing in the Rain
Book SynopsisThis is a daring, deeply affecting novel about the secrets buried in the past of an Argentine family; a story of fathers and sons, corruption and responsibility, memory and history, with a mystery at its heart.A young writer, living abroad, returns home to his native Argentina to say goodbye to his dying father. In his parents'' house, he finds a cache of documents - articles, maps, photographs - and unwittingly begins to unearth his father''s obsession with the disappearance of a local man. Suddenly he comes face to face with the ghosts of Argentina''s dark political past and with the long-hidden memories of his family''s underground resistance against an oppressive military regime. As the fragments of the narrator''s investigation fall into place - revealing not only a part of his father''s life he had tried to forget, but also the legacy of an entire generation - My Father''s Ghost Is Climbing in the Rain tells a completely original story of fami
£11.69
Faber & Faber Blue is the Night The Blue Trilogy
Book Synopsis1949. Lance Curran is set to prosecute a young man for a brutal murder, in the ''Robert the Painter'' case, one which threatens to tear society apart. In the searing July heat, corruption and justice vie as Harry Ferguson, Judge Curran''s fixer, contemplates the souls of men adrift, and his own fall from grace with the beautiful and wilful Patricia. Within three years, Curran will be a judge, his nineteen year old daughter dead, at the hands of a still unknown murderer, and his wife Doris condemned to an asylum for the rest of her days. In Blue Is the Night, it is Doris who finally emerges from the fog of deceit and blame to cast new light into the murder of her daughter - as McNamee once again explores and dramatizes a notorious and nefarious case.
£9.25
Faber & Faber Apple Tree Yard
Book Synopsis**A BIRD IN WINTER - THE NEW NOVEL FROM LOUISE DOUGHTY - AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER NOW**THE GRIPPING NOVEL BY LOUISE DOUGHTY, PLATFORM SEVEN, IS SOON TO BE A MAJOR ITV SERIESTHE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER, WITH OVER HALF A MILLION COPIES SOLDShortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger for Best Thriller and the Specsavers National Book Awards Crime & Thriller of the YearYvonne Carmichael has a high-flying career, a beautiful home and a good marriage.But when she meets a stranger she is drawn into a passionate affair.Keeping the two halves of her life separate seems easy at first.But she can''t control what happens next.
£9.49
Faber & Faber The Chemistry of Tears
Book SynopsisLondon 2011. Catherine Gehrig, conservator at the Swinburne museum, learns of the unexpected death of her lover of thirteen years - but as the mistress of a married man, she has to grieve in private. Her employer at the museum, aware of Catherine''s grief, gives her a special project - to piece together both the mechanics and the story of an extraordinary automaton, commissioned in the nineteenth century by Henry Brandling to amuse his dying son. Linked by the mysterious automaton, Catherine and Henry''s stories intertwine across time to explore the mysteries of life and death, the miracle and catastrophe of human invention and the body''s astonishing chemistry of love and feeling.
£10.44
Faber & Faber Caret
Book SynopsisWe make lazy assumptions about the centre of things and its location. Who's to say that the centre of things isn't in a corner, way over there?'People in authority are always saying you should know your rights, though I've noticed they don't much enjoy it when you do.'Nobody can be a person twenty-fours hours a day it just can't be done. At night the sets dissolve and the performance falls away We're off the books.' That's John Cromer talking, in this fresh instalment of his lifelong saga. For John, embarking on a new stage of life in 1970s Cambridge, charm and wit aren''t just assets, they are survival skills. It may be a case of John against the world. If so, don't be in too much of a hurry to bet on the world.Conjuring a remarkable voice and mind, Caret is a feast of a novel, served on a succession of small plates, each portion providing an adult's daily intake of literary nourishment. Reading it like any encounter with John Cro
£11.69
Faber & Faber Red or Dead
Book Synopsis''A masterpiece.'' ObserverFrom the bestselling author of Munichs and The Damned Utd*Now a major production at the Royal Court, Liverpool, starring Peter Mullan*In 1959, Liverpool Football Club were in the Second Division. Liverpool Football Club had never won the FA Cup. Fifteen seasons later, Liverpool Football Club had won three League titles, two FA Cups and the UEFA Cup. Liverpool Football Club had become the most consistently successful team in England. And the most passionately supported club. Their manager was revered as a god.Destined for immortality. Their manager was Bill Shankly. His job was his life. His life was football. His football a form of socialism. Bill Shankly inspired people. Bill Shankly transformed people. The players and the supporters.His legacy would reveberate through the ages.In 1974, Liverpool Football Club and Bill Shankly stood on the verge of even greater success. In England and in Europe. But in 1974, Bill Shankly shocked Liverpool and football. Bill Shankly resigned. Bill Shankly retired. Red or Dead is the story of the rise of Liverpool Football Club and Bill Shankly. And the story of the retirement of Bill Shankly. Of one man and his work. And of the man after that work. A man in two halves. Home and away. Red or dead.
£999.99
Faber & Faber Sudden Times
Book SynopsisOllie Ewing is barely surviving. Back home in Sligo after ''a few experiences'' in London, he collects trolleys in a supermarket car park and lives in a run-down house with a group of art students. Tormented by old regrets and terrible fears -- vague recollections of his brother''s violent demise, and his best friend''s grisly end as a pile of charred bones in the back of a lorry -- he decides at last to confront his demons.
£9.49
Faber & Faber The Big Music
Book Synopsis''The hills only come back the same: I don''t mind . . .'' begins Kirsty Gunn''s The Big Music, a novel that takes us to a new understanding of how fiction can affect us. Presented as a collection of found papers, appendices and notes, The Big Music tells the story of John Sutherland of ''The Grey House'', who is dying and creating in the last days of his life a musical composition that will define it. Yet he has little idea of how his tune will echo or play out into the world - and as the book moves inevitably through its themes of death and birth, change and stasis, the sound of his solitary story comes to merge and connect with those around him. In this work of fiction, Kirsty Gunn has created something as real as music or as a dream. Not so much a novel as a place the reader comes to inhabit and to know, The Big Music is a literary work of undeniable originality and power.
£9.99
Faber & Faber Tremor
Book Synopsis''Extraordinary.'' SUNDAY TIMESDazzling.'' DEBORAH LEVY''Masterful.'' DAILY TELEGRAPHTunde, the man at the centre of this novel, reflects on the places and times of his life, from his West African upbringing to his current work as a teacher of photography on a renowned New England campus. He is a reader, a listener and a traveller drawn to many different kinds of stories: tales from history and the epic; accounts of friends, family and strangers; narratives found in books and films. One man's personal lens refracts entire worlds, and back again.A weekend spent shopping for antiques is shadowed by the colonial atrocities that occurred on that land. A walk at dusk is interrupted by casual racism. A loving marriage is riven by mysterious tensions. And a remarkable cascade of voices speaks out from a pulsing metropolis.Tremor is a startling work of realism and invention that examines the passage of time and how we mark it. It i
£999.99
