Search results for ""faber faber""
Faber & Faber When Stars are Scattered
A heart-wrenching true story about life in a Kenyan refugee camp that will restore your faith in real-life happy endings.Omar and his brother Hassan, two Somali boys, have spent a long time in the Dadaab refugee camp. Separated from their mother, they are looked after by a friendly stranger. Life in the camp isn't always easy. The hunger is constant . . . but there's football to look forward to, and now there's a chance Omar will get to go to school . . .With a heart-wrenching fairytale ending, this incredible true story is brought to life by Victoria's stunning illustrations. This book perfectly depicts life in a refugee camp for 8-12 year olds.'Does everything one can ask of a book, and then some.' Kirkus'Fantastic graphic novel.' The New York Times Book Review'Sensitive and poignant.' School Library Journal'Not to be missed.' Booklist
£9.99
Faber & Faber Stalin and the Scientists: A History of Triumph and Tragedy 1905–1953
LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION War-torn, unstable and virtually bankrupt, revolutionary Russia tried to light its way to the future with the fitful glow of science. It succeeded through terror, folly and crime - but also through courage, imagination and even genius. Stalin believed that science should serve the state and with many disciplines having virtually unlimited funds, by the time of his death in 1953, the Soviet Union boasted the largest and best-funded scientific establishment in history - at once the glory and the laughing stock of the intellectual world. The human cost of this peculiar marriage between the state and its scientists was horrendous, yet, in Stalin and the Scientists, Simon Ings makes clear what Soviet science has done for us.
£12.99
Faber & Faber These Days: 'A gem of a novel, I adored it.' MARIAN KEYES
WINNER OF THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTIONWINNER OF THE E. M. FORSTER AWARDAS HEARD ON BBC RADIO 4s BOOK AT BEDTIMETwo sisters. Four nights. One City.April, 1941. Belfast has escaped the worst of the war - so far. Following the lives of sisters Emma and Audrey - one engaged to be married, the other in a secret relationship with another woman - as they try to survive the horrors of the Belfast Blitz, These Days is an unforgettable novel about lives lived under duress, about family, and about how we try to stay true to ourselves'Brilliantly evokes wartime love and heartbreak.' Guardian'Breathtakingly good. A novel of enormous heart; full of luminous passages of prose.' Observer'Meticulously researched, perfectly imagined, full of compassion and emotional truth.' CLARE CHAMBERS
£14.38
Faber & Faber Reward System: 'A superb writer, by turns funny, graceful, acidly cynical, lyrical' GUARDIAN
For fans of Patricia Lockwood and Ben Lerner, audacious fictions of a generation wondering: what now?** Chosen as a Guardian, White Review and NPR Book of the Year 2022 **'Reward System is an exhilarating and beautiful book by an extraordinarily gifted writer. Reading these stories, I found myself thinking newly and differently about contemporary life.' SALLY ROONEY Julia has landed a fresh start - at a 'pan-European' restaurant.'Imagine that,' says her mother.'I'm imagining.'Nick is flirting with sobriety and nobody else. Did you know: adults his age are now more likely to live with their parents than a romantic partner?Life should have started to take shape by now - but instead we're trying on new versions of ourselves, swiping left and right, searching for a convincing answer to that question: 'What do you do?'Reward System is a set of ultra-contemporary and electrifyingly fresh fictions about a generation of the cusp; the story of two people enmeshed in Zooms and lockdowns, loneliness and love.
£14.99
Faber & Faber Yehuda Amichai Selected Poems
Yehuda Amichai was first brought to attention in this country by his inclusion in Modern Poetry in Translation (1965). The magazine's editors, Daniel Weissbort and Ted Hughes, here provide a selection of Amichai's poetry translated by various hands, placing his achievements alongside those other Eastern European poets with whom he was first introduced - Zbigniew Herbert, Miroslav Holub, Vasko Popa, Czeslaw Milosz and Andrei Voznesensky - while demonstrating what makes his own talent so unique.In Ted Hughes's words, Amichai was 'the poet whose books I still open most often, most often take on a journey, most often return to when the whole business of writing anything natural, real and satisfying, seems impossible. And that after thirty years of feeling the same way about him. The effect his poetry has on me is to give me my own life - to open it up somehow, to make it available to me afresh, to uncover all kinds of riches in every moment of it, and to free me from my mental prisons'.
£14.99
Faber & Faber Dear Little Corpses: 'Genius.' The Times
'More than just a brilliant mystery . . . wonderful.' Ian Moore, author of Death and Croissants'Kept me guessing. Bravo!' Martin Edwards, author of The Lake District MysteriesIt takes a village to bury a child.1 September, 1939. As the mass evacuation takes place across Britain, thousands of children leave London for the countryside, but when a little girl vanishes without trace, the reality of separation becomes more desperate and more deadly for those who love her.In the chaos and uncertainty of war, Josephine struggles with the prospect of change. As a cloud of suspicion falls across the small Suffolk village she has come to love, the conflict becomes personal, and events take a dark and sinister turn.'A class above the usual crime fiction.' Independent
£14.99
Faber & Faber Randomly Moving Particles
Randomly Moving Particles is built from two long poems that form its opening and close, connected by three shorter pieces. The title poem, in a kaleidoscope of compelling scenes, engages with subjects that include migration, placement, loss, space exploration and current British and American politics. It is a clarifying action and reaction between terra and solar system, mundanity and possibility, taking us from the grit of road surfaces to the distant glimpses of satellites. The final poem, 'How Do the Dead Walk', combines mythic reach with acute observation of the familiar, in order to address issues of contemporary violence. It is altogether more dreamlike, even in its tangibly military moments, grasping as it does at phantoms and intermediate plains. Andrew Motion's expansive new poetry collection is direct in its emotional appeal, ambitious in its scope, all the while retaining the cinematic vision and startling expression that so freshly lit the lines of his last, Essex Clay.
£14.99
Faber & Faber Uki and the Ghostburrow: BLUE PETER BOOK AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR
From bestselling author and winner of the Blue Peter Book Award, this is the sixth adventure set in the world of Podkin One-Ear.'Why are you worried? You have us beside you! We've captured three spirits already. We've beaten Endwatchers, two clans, snakes, plagues and a whole ocean of disgusting maggots.'After capturing Charice, there is only one spirit left for Uki to find: Mortix, the most dangerous of all. With his friends Jori, Cole and Kree, Uki heads to Eisenfell - the greatest city in Hulstland - only to find that Mortix has taken control of Emperor Ash and is plotting to conquer the whole Five Realms with her terrifying army.Uki must dodge the Endwatch, the Shrikes, Clan Septys and the guards and find a way to complete his quest before all is lost.'Storytelling perfection.' Sophie Anderson'Pure magic.' Abi Elphinstone'Superb.' Max Porter'A spellbinding story full of friendship, excitement and magic.' Guardian'A classic.' BookTrust'Riveting adventure.' Kirkus
£12.99
Faber & Faber Black Earth City: A Year in the Heart of Russia
Richly observed, this witty and yet deeply moving tale of Charlotte Hobson's year travelling around Russia takes us to the heart of a country that we are continually interested in, yet can struggle to understand. As the TLS put it, Hobson writes with 'such a beguiling directness that it is hard not to feel intimate with her and her characters. Few books evoke so much of Russian life, with so little effort.''Each chapter is a bonne bouche, possessing its own particular flavour, from sweet to acrid-bitter. Hobson's characters are often wonderfully quixotic and so is the spirit she finds everywhere at this crux in Russia's history. She drinks with derelicts, hangs out with gypsies, and watches investigators go about the grim business of exhuming purge victims, and giving them the Christian burial they have been denied for seventy years. Her style is deft: she manages to render the scenes through which she passes with needle-sharp precision.' Financial Times
£10.99
Faber & Faber Philip Larkin: Letters Home
Letters Home gives access to the last major archive of Larkin's writing to remain unpublished: the letters to members of his family. These correspondences help tell the story of how Larkin came to be the writer and the man he was: to his father Sydney, a 'conservative anarchist' and admirer of Hitler, who died relatively early in Larkin's life; to his timid, depressive mother Eva, who by contrast lived long, and whose final years were shadowed by dementia; and to his sister Kitty, the sparse surviving fragment of whose correspondence with her brother gives an enigmatic glimpse of a complex and intimate relationship. In particular, it was the years during which he and his sister looked after their mother that shaped the writer we know so well: a number of poems written over this time are for her, and the mood of pain, shadow and despondency that characterises his later verse draws its strength from his experience of the long, lonely years of her senility. One surprising element in the volume, however, is the joie de vivre shown in the large number of witty and engaging drawings of himself and Eva, as 'Young Creature' and 'Old Creature', with which he enlivens his letters throughout the three decades of her widowhood.This important edition, meticulously edited by James Booth is a key piece of scholarship that completes the portrait of this most cherished of English poets.
£36.00
Faber & Faber Kismet
Anna is in love. Or maybe not.She's a free spirit: definitely happy.Or is it more panicked?In any case, she is living life to the full. Or maybe to the edge.And having a glass of wine.With a big birthday just around the corner, an important new project at work, and a boyfriend she suspects might be about to ask her a significant question, Anna should feel like she has it all together. But somehow, she just doesn't seem to be sure about, well, anything. So she gets out her phone and decides to download Kismet. Will she embrace the life she has, or risk everything for the life she imagines?With the warmth of David Nicholls and the off-kilter charisma of Phoebe Waller-Bridge's Fleabag, Kismet is a love story about imperfect people in a world obsessed with perfect matches.
£12.99
Faber & Faber Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme
On 1 July 1916, the 36th (Ulster) Division took part in one of the bloodiest battles in human history, the Battle of the Somme. This enduring war play is a powerful portrayal of mortality, love and loss. In the extraordinary circumstances of World War I, eight ordinary men arechanged, changed utterly.In 2016, one hundred years after the battle, Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme by Frank McGuinness was revived in a co-production between Abbey Theatre, Citizens Theatre, Headlong and Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse.This edition contains a new introduction by P. J. Mathews.'There is a touch of genius in McGuinness's, sensitive, often bleakly comic exploration of the men's situation.' Daily Telegraph'This is an epic drama that demands recognition for the male human animal in all his complexity, across any boundaries of belief or belonging we care to construct.' The Scotsman
£10.99
Faber & Faber Traitor to the Throne
The second installment of this highly-acclaimed trilogy, Traitor to the Throne throws the irrepressible Amani into a world of espionage, harems, and the Sultan himself.This is not about blood or love. This is about treason.Nearly a year has passed since Amani and the rebels won their epic battle at Fahali. Amani has come into both her powers and her reputation as the Blue-Eyed Bandit, and the Rebel Prince's message has spread across the desert - and some might say out of control. But when a surprise encounter turns into a brutal kidnapping, Amani finds herself betrayed in the cruellest manner possible. Stripped of her powers and her identity, and torn from the man she loves, Amani must return to her desert-girl's instinct for survival. For the Sultan's palace is a dangerous one, and the harem is a viper's nest of suspicion, fear and intrigue. Just the right place for a spy to thrive... But spying is a dangerous game, and when ghosts from Amani's past emerge to haunt her, she begins to wonder if she can trust her own treacherous heart.Praise for the series:'Sheer escapism.' Guardian'Winning.' New York Times'Thrilling.' Booklist'Hugely entertaining . . . breathless romance and show-stopping action sequences.' Bookseller
£8.99
Faber & Faber Nights in the Iron Hotel
Michael Hofmann, a much-praised contributor to Poetry Introduction 5, was born in Germany in 1957 but brought up in Britain. Nights in the Iron Hotel, which won the author a Cholmondeley Award in 1984, is his first full-length volume. Hofmann's poems are marked by a classical authority, a formidable ironic intelligence, wide-ranging subject matter and a unique tone of voice. 'You move the fifty-seven muscles it takes to smile,' Hofmann writes in a poem whose subject is sexual tension - and immediately the reader recognises a world in which emotions are not the usual poetic counters but something truer, more complex and more painful. This quality of disenchantment is served by a deceptively laconic style of measured brio.
£10.99
Faber & Faber Blue is the Night
1949. 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.
£8.42
Faber & Faber We Need to Talk About Kelvin: What everyday things tell us about the universe
Look around you. The reflection of your face in a window tells you that the universe is orchestrated by chance. The iron in a spot of blood on your finger tells you that somewhere out in space there is furnace at a temperature of 4.5 billion degrees. Your TV tells you that the universe had a beginning. In fact, your very existence tells you that this may not be the only universe but merely one among an infinity of others, stacked like the pages of a never-ending book.Marcus Chown, author of Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You, What a Wonderful World and The Solar System, takes familiar features of the world we know and shows how they can be used to explain profound truths about the ultimate nature of reality. His new book will change the way you see the universe: with Chown as your guide, cutting-edge science is made clear and meaningful by a falling leaf, or a rose, or a starry night sky... We Need To Talk About Kelvin: What Everyday Things Tell Us About The Universe is a hugely accessible exploration of quantum theory, relativity, cosmology, biology and chemistry. Taking our everyday experiences, Marcus Chown quickly and painlessly explains the unltimate truths of reality.
£10.99
Faber & Faber That Face
I can't take care of you anymore. I can't take it. It's like an endless boxing match.Mia is at boarding school. She has access to drugs. They are Martha's. Henry is preparing for art college. He has access to alcohol. From Martha. Martha controls their lives. Martha is their mother.That Face premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in April 2007, and won the TMA Award 2007 for Best New Play. Polly Stenham received both the Charles Wintour Award 2007 and the Critics' Circle Award 2008 for Most Promising Playwright.
£10.99
Faber & Faber The Faber Pocket Guide to Musicals
James Inverne provides an indispensable guide to his top one hundred greatest shows of all time - and ten of the worst. Whether you know your Pal Joey from The Producers, your West Side Story from your Witch Witch, the Faber Pocket Guide To Musicals is packed with entertaining behind-the-scenes stories, essential songlists and comprehensive recording guides. Did you know, for instance, that one of the best recordings of Les Miserables is in Hebrew? Or that Mel Brooks wasn't the first person to want to make a musical of The Producers? (That claim goes to Eric Idle.) Or the ridiculous story of the huge purpose-built theatre constructed in Holland to house a flop about Grace Kelly? Key features include: - The hundred greatest musicals - Numbers to listen for - Snapshot plot summaries - Ten terrible musicals - Recommended recordings James Inverne has been writing about musical theatre for years and brings copious knowledge, passion for the subject and a sense of fun to a genre that continues to entertain us all. Make the most of the musicals with this vital book.
£10.99
Faber & Faber Chicken Mission: The Curse of Fogsham Farm
'Chickens: we've got a vampire problem.'In the lonely village of Fogsham, vampire mink Stella von Fangula, has risen from the grave. Her aim: to suck the blood of chickens in a bid for eternal life. In an attempt to stop Fangula, Professor Rooster orders his elite chicken squad to the scene. What he hasn't bargained on is the devious plotting of his archrival, Thaddeus E Fox and his MOST WANTED gang of criminals. Can Amy, Boo and Ruth find a way to stop Fox and Fangula and their army of zombie chickens before it's too late?
£7.78
Faber & Faber North by Northwest
Hitchcock's best-loved romantic thriller is one of the most influential works ever made in the genre - an enticing cocktail of suspense, comedy, eroticism and danger.Roger Thornhill is a suave but stiff-necked Madison Avenue executive, who finds himself mistaken for a US intelligence agent, and dragged into life-threatening escapades. His consolation is that he gets to romance an elegant female spy, but he soon learns that the game of international intrigue is played for high stakes. Ernest Lehman provides an introduction to this souvenir volume, published to coincide with the centenary of Hitchcock's birth, in which he describes the course of his cherishable collaboration with the master of suspense.
£12.99
Faber & Faber Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man
George Sherston develops from a shy and awkward child, through shiftless adolescence, to an officer just beginning to understand the horrors of trench warfare. The world he grows up in, of village cricket and loyal grooms, had vanished forever by the time Sassoon wrote this book, but he captures it with a lyricism and gentleness that defy nostalgia.A bestseller on publication in 1928, this superb evocation of the Edwardian age has remained in print ever since. It was the first volume of a classic trilogy, completed by Memoirs of an Infantry Officer and Sherston's Progress, that charted both the destruction of the world for which Sassoon fought, and his own emergence as one of Britain's finest war poets.
£9.99
Faber & Faber A Gambling Man: Charles II and the Restoration
Charles II was thirty when he crossed the Channel in fine May weather in 1660. His Restoration was greeted with maypoles and bonfires, like spring after long years of Cromwell's rule. But there was no going back, no way he could 'restore' the old. Certainty had vanished. The divinity of kingship fled with his father's beheading. 'Honour' was now a word tossed around in duels. 'Providence' could no longer be trusted. As the country was rocked by plague, fire and war, people searched for new ideas by which to live. Exactly ten years later Charles II would stand again on the shore at Dover, laying the greatest bet of his life in a secret deal with his cousin, Louis XIV.The Restoration decade was one of experiment: from the science of the Royal Society to the startling role of credit and risk, from the shocking licence of the court to the failed attempts at toleration of different beliefs. Negotiating all these, Charles II, the 'slippery sovereign', played odds and took chances, dissembling and manipulating his followers. The theatres were restored, but the king was the supreme actor. Yet while his grandeur, his court and his colourful sex life were on display, his true intentions lay hidden.A Gambling Man is a portrait of Charles II, exploring his elusive nature through the lens of these ten vital years - and a portrait of a vibrant, violent, pulsing world, racked with plague, fire and war, in which the risks the king took forged the fate of the nation, on the brink of the modern world.
£14.99
Faber & Faber Relax: A User's Guide to Life in the Age of Anxiety
'Caulfield wittily breaks down everyday dilemmas that might frazzle you . . . Relax encourages you to make decisions informed by evidence, in the hope that you might stop overthinking them.'PANDORA SYKES, THE TIMES'A handbook that is informed as well as wise.'OBSERVERA surprising, liberating and scientifically informed guide to overcoming the anxiety that permeates modern life.How many cups of coffee should I drink?Are work meetings really worth the time?Do I really have to floss?Award-winning public-health expert Timothy Caulfield tackles our daily dilemmas - from the moment we wake up to when we go to sleep - and the innumerable cultural, social and psychological forces shaping the decisions we make. Too often these decisions are dictated by concerns or beliefs about our world that simply aren't true. Caulfield shows that these misperceptions unnecessarily stress us out and cause us to waste time and money.Relax reveals a science-informed way out of this mess, helping to put your mind at ease.'Caulfield provides much needed sanity in a world of claims run amok . . . I devoured it.'DANIEL LEVITIN, author of The Organized Mind'Read this book - it will vaccinate you against misinformation!'DR JEN GUNTER, author of The Menopause ManifestoWINNER of the 2021 Science Writers and Communicators of Canada Book AwardWINNER of the 2021 Alberta Literary Awards' Wilfrid Eggleston Award for Nonfiction
£9.99
Faber & Faber Avalon
Bran's Southern California upbringing is anything but traditional. After her mother abandons her and joins a Buddhist colony, Bran is raised by her 'common-law stepfather' on Bourdon Farms - a plant nursery that doubles as a cover for a biker gang. She spends her days tending plants, slogging through high school and imagining what life could be if she had been born to a different family.Then she meets Peter - a charming, troubled college student from the East Coast - who launches his teaching career by initiating her into the world of art. The two begin a seemingly doomed long-distance relationship as Bran searches for meaning in her own surroundings. She knows how to survive, but now she must learn how to live.'Avalon observes beautifully the shifting terrain of teenage intimacy: its intensity and its fragility . . . it's a hilarious, heartbreaking and - of course - extremely weird novel.' Sunday Times
£13.49
Faber & Faber Every Vow You Break: 'Murderous fun' from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Kind Worth Killing
From the author of the Richard and Judy Book Club picks The Kind Worth Killing and Rules for Perfect Murders'Another top-notch thriller . . . it proves the adage: marry for money and you'll earn every penny.' Alice O'Keefe, The Bookseller, Editor's Pick'Hitchcockian chills and thrills abound . . . a twisty tale of survival and deception.' O, The Oprah MagazineAfter a whirlwind, fairytale romance, Abigail Baskin marries freshly-minted Silicon Valley millionaire Bruce Lamb.For their honeymoon, he whisks her away to an exclusive retreat at a friend's resort off the Maine coast on Heart Pond Island. But once there, Abigail's perfect new life threatens to crash down around her as she recognises one of their fellow guests as the good looking, charismatic stranger who weeks earlier had seduced her at her own Bachelorette party...'Peter Swanson is in the ranks of the killer elite alongside Tana French and Gillian Flynn. He's the real deal.' Joe HillWhat readers are saying'A terrifying thriller . . . you are in for a treat.''Please do yourself a favor and go into this one blind.''It starts at a nice, steady, honeymoon pace . . . until all hell breaks lose and your heart is pounding along with the characters'. Another great one!''A truly bonkers page turner. Definitely recommend.''Prepare to read it in one sitting.'
£12.99
Faber & Faber The House Uptown
'Utterly unique, addictively readable.' Pandora Sykes'Intriguing, elegant and seductive.' Jessica Moor'You can't put it down.' Kevin WilsonAfter the sudden death of her mother, Ava finds herself headed cross-country to live with the only relative she has left. But Lane, her grandmother, doesn't seem to have much room in her heart for a teenage girl, barely acknowledging Ava between obsessive painting sessions. The only other person who comes around is Lane's assistant, Oliver, who's dealing with issues of his own. As the summer goes on, Ava begins to get a sense that something is very wrong in her grandmother's house. Why was Lane estranged from Ava's mother, and is she now losing her mind? Could the danger lie with Oliver? Or, is there something darker in their past, something which could come back to destroy them all?
£12.99
Faber & Faber Musical World: Modern World History as You’ve Never Heard it Before
From the critically acclaimed author of Musical Truth comes a new soundtrack to pivotal historical moments from around the world.From Billie Holliday to Aretha Franklin, Fela Kuti to Donna Summer, Elton John to Michael Jackson - it turns out that 40 classic tunes reflect and encapsulate the key historical moments of the 20th and 21st century.Musical World features music from a vast range of genres including Jazz, Rock n Roll, Disco and Hiphop. Jeffrey Boakye, teacher, historian and broadcaster, explores the roots and wider impact of these genres, touching on why they were celebrated or seen as problematic, their political and cultural impact, and their ongoing legacy today.Featuring a dance that lead to a new sense of sexual liberation, feminism, the Vietnam war, the carving up of the African continent, antisemitism, HIV, homosexuality and the impact of disco, and a football anthem. . .It will make you cry, question and gasp - this is a brand new view of world history - memorable, outspoken - hitherto unspoken!
£8.99
Faber & Faber Toys / Tricks / Traps
In Christopher Reid's marvellous new collection, a schoolboy furtively and thrillingly drops a marble through the top of his desk so that it makes its way in darkness along a complicated chute of books, rulers and rubbish, only to emerge from a hole in the base and be caught deftly in his other hand. The poem is titled 'Homeric' and might serve as a clue to the mood and construction of the collection in general, where the poet, now in his seventies, seeks to track down and commune with his much younger self. It is an investigation that tests Wordsworth's 'the Child is father of the Man' by contriving a series of transtemporal encounters between two selves who may now, conceivably, begin to understand each other.Reid was born in Hong Kong and, thanks to the roving nature of his father's employment, spent some of his childhood in foreign places. Most of the locations in this book, however, are the Britain of the 1950s and '60s - perhaps, at this distance in time, no less exotic. As the poems move from pre-verbal experience to adolescence, the younger self is captured in scenes that illuminate the steps by which a man - a poet - has been raised. Another poem conjures up the childhood of Henry James in order to reflect on 'the large part / mystery plays in both childhood and art', a proposition that the book as a whole may be said to endorse through both its wondering gaze and its ingenuity.
£13.49
Faber & Faber The Reactor: A Book about Grief and Repair
'One of the finest accounts of the mysterious workings of grief I have ever read.' Helen Macdonald'Completely compelling.' Olivia Laing'Read it with awe and sorrow.' Fatima BhuttoAfter the sudden death of his father, Nick Blackburn embarks on a singular, labyrinthine journey to understand his loss. How do you create an existence when all you can see is a void?The Reactor is a memoir about absence and creative possibilities, assembled like the pieces of a puzzle. Through philosophy, music, fashion, psychology, art and film, Blackburn travels a vast panorama of ideas and characters to offer an entirely new exploration of grief. This is a book about looking for and finding chain reactions and human connection - a work of enduring fragmentary beauty.
£10.99
Faber & Faber Carnival of the Spider: BLUE PETER BOOK AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR
There were three men and two women . . . One had half a face. One had iron legs. The others all had one or both arms missing. There were pincers and claws and guns instead. And you could hear them ticking. Ticking all the time.When Sheba the wolfgirl learns that her old friend Sister Moon is being held prisoner by the Spider and its gang of mechanical villains, the Carnival immediately launch a daring rescue mission to Paris. Along with Pyewacket the witch's imp and catlike Inji, Sheba joins forces with Moon's son Remy, a boy who can bend shadows to his will.Deep underground in the catacombs of Paris there is a map, which they must find to trade for Moon's freedom. But who is this mysterious Spider? And why is she so desperate for an old map? With the city under siege from Prussian invaders and the Spider's henchmen on their trail, the Carnival will need to use all their powers to save their friend . . .
£7.99
Faber & Faber Wild Pets
'Smart and funny... Wild Pets is an instant set text of the emerging canon of millennial fiction.'Guardian'A wickedly funny and emotionally complex novel.'Jenny Offill, author of Weather and Dept. of Speculation'An impresive, cumulatively powerful first outing.'Daily Mail'A ripe and excellent debut... funny and smart and human and true.'Andrew O'Hagan, author of MayfliesWild Pets follows Iris, Ezra and Nance in the years after university. They fall in and out of bed with each other, reread The Art of War, grieve the closing of Fabric and write book proposals on the history of salt, while submerging their nights in drink and drugs. Confronting adulthood with high wit and low behaviour against contemporary political and social turmoil, these young men and women seem to have everything going for them. So why are they still swimming desperately against the tide? A bold, honest novel, Wild Pets is about the fragility of mental health, power imbalances in friendship and sex, and creative ambition fused with destruction - and the lingering power of first loves.
£13.49
Faber & Faber A Guest in the House: ‘Vividly drawn and masterfully plotted.’ Observer, GRAPHIC NOVEL OF THE MONTH
'Her voice is unique and powerful and I, for one, am addicted to it.' GUILLERMO DEL TORO 'Mind-bending . . . a taut, toothy drama and a chillingly muted psychological horror.'Irish Times, 'Best Graphic Novels of 2023''Carroll's talent is immense.' Observer, Graphic Novel of the Month'Emily is the master, I die for her books' KATE BEATON'Carroll knows when to shock on the turn of a page and when to leave her horrors lurking' IndependentA contemporary gothic horror and comics classic, perfect for fans of Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, Stranger Things and The Haunting of Hill HouseI used to dream of Dragons. . . Abby is settling into married life: making coffee, cooking for David and her stepdaughter Crystal, spending evenings curled up together in front of the TV. For a quiet woman without many friends, she's proud of the life she has built, and desperately wants to believe they will all be happy.But what really happened to Crystal's mother, the artist who no-one speaks of? What secrets does their strange house by the water harbour, and what of Abby's old dreams and fears, of Lady Grey, the Knight and the Dragons?In her chilling return - a story of grief, ghosts, and the struggle to be true to oneself - Emily Carroll casts another unforgettable spell.
£17.09
Faber & Faber Diaghilev's Empire: How the Ballets Russes Enthralled the World
Serge Diaghilev was the Russian impresario who is often said to have invented the modern art form of ballet. Commissioning such legendary names as Nijinsky, Fokine, Stravinsky, and Picasso, this intriguingly complex genius produced a series of radically original art works that had a revolutionary impact throughout the western world.Off stage and in its wake came scandal and sensation, as the great artists and mercurial performers involved variously collaborated, clashed, competed while falling in and out of love with each other on a wild carousel of sexual intrigue and temperamental mayhem. The Ballets Russes not only left a matchless artistic legacy - they changed style and glamour, they changed taste, and they changed social behaviour.The Ballets Russes came to an official end after many vicissitudes with Diaghilev's abrupt death in 1929. But the achievements of its heroic prime had established a paradigm that would continue to define the terms and set the standards for the next. Published to mark the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Diaghilev's birth, Rupert Christiansen - leading critic and self-confessed 'incurable balletomane' - presents this freshly researched and challenging reassessment of a unique phenomenon, exploring passionate conflicts and outsize personalities in a story embracing triumph and disaster.
£22.50
Faber & Faber Rescue
Astonishing real-life rescue missions from on, under and above the earth from the award-winning team behind Survivors and Heroes.How far would you go to save a life? Scrambling from the wreckage of his school after an earthquake, a nine-year-old Sichuan boy rescued two unconscious friends. 'I was hall monitor,' he said afterwards. 'It is my job to look after my classmates.'Whether dragging a friend from a blazing car, masterminding a search far below the earth's surface, or recovering astronauts from an aborted space mission, Rescue reveals the ingenuity, courage and doggedness of the human spirit all over the world.Another unputdownable collection of eye-opening and moving true adventures, both contemporary and historical. Impeccably told by David Long and brought to vibrant life by illustrator Kerry Hyndman.Praise for the series:'True-story fans will love this.' Inis Children's Books Ireland 'Full of incredible real-life stories . . . Ultimately an inspirational book, beautifully illustrated.' Angels and Urchins'A great collection of harrowing, true survivor stories.' Kirkus
£13.49
Faber & Faber When Ghosts Come Home
'A searing, thunderous, heartbreaking thriller.' CHRIS WHITAKER 'Taut, tense, and tender - this novel hits every note.' LILY KINGAn abandoned plane. A dead body. A small town threatening to explode.Investigating the mystery of an abandoned plane and a dead body, the Sheriff of the small town of Oak Island struggles to contain long-simmering racial tensions. His troubles are soon compounded by his returning daughter, whose marriage is falling apart, and the FBI pilot sent in to help with the case.
£9.99
Faber & Faber Empire of the Clouds: The Golden Era of Britain's Aircraft
In 1945 Britain was the world's leading designer and builder of aircraft - a world-class achievement that was not mere rhetoric. And what aircraft they were. The sleek Comet, the first jet airliner. The awesome delta-winged Vulcan, an intercontinental bomber that could be thrown about the sky like a fighter. The Hawker Hunter, the most beautiful fighter-jet ever built and the Lightning, which could zoom ten miles above the clouds in a couple of minutes and whose pilots rated flying it as better than sex.How did Britain so lose the plot that today there is not a single aircraft manufacturer of any significance in the country? What became of the great industry of de Havilland or Handley Page? And what was it like to be alive in that marvellous post-war moment when innovative new British aircraft made their debut, and pilots were the rock stars of the age?
£8.99
Faber & Faber Punk Rocker Poodle
No school.No THANKS.No. NO. NO!Laura Dockrill's inimitable style of poetic rap is brilliantly suited to this romp through the house and round and round the playgroup, as one little poodle demonstrates what fun it is to stomp and stamp and pout . . . that is until naptime, when all she really wants is a . . . CUDDLE! There is a funky music video quality to this text, and the eye popping artwork matches the anarchic playfulness of the rap!
£7.21
Faber & Faber The Death of King Arthur
By the Poet LaureateThe Alliterative Morte Arthure - the title given to a four-thousand line poem written sometime around 1400 - was part of a medieval Arthurian revival which produced such masterpieces as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Sir Thomas Malory's prose Morte D'Arthur. The Death of King Arthur deals in the cut-and-thrust of warfare and politics: the ever-topical matter of Britain's relationship with continental Europe, and of its military interests overseas. Simon Armitage is already the master of this alliterative music, as his earlier version of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (2006) so resourcefully and exuberantly showed. His new translation restores a neglected masterpiece of story-telling, by bringing vividly to life its entirely medieval mix of ruthlessness and restraint.
£10.99
Faber & Faber Jill
Michaelmas term, 1940. 18-year-old John Kemp has come down from Lancashire to Oxford University to begin his scholarship studying English. But when he invents an imaginary sister to win the attention of a rich but unreliable 'friend', and then falls in love for real, undergraduate life becomes its own strange world .'Absolutely contemporary - perhaps even prophetic.' Joyce Carol Oates'Remarkable . A book about innocence.' Simon Garfield'A cryptic literary manifesto [about] discovering a literary personality, and the consolation art can provide.' Andrew Motion
£9.99
Faber & Faber Red Memory: The Afterlives of China's Cultural Revolution
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2023WINNER OF THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 2023SHORTLISTED FOR THE BRITISH ACADEMY PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2023A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEARA BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEKAn indelible exploration of the Cultural Revolution and how it shapes China today, Red Memory uncovers forty years of silence through the rarely heard stories of individuals who lived through Mao's decade of madness.'Very good and very instructive.' MARGARET ATWOOD'Written with an almost painful beauty.' JONATHAN FREEDLAND'Took my breath away.' BARBARA DEMICK'Haunting.' OLIVER BURKEMAN'A masterpiece.' JULIA LOVELLA 13-year-old Red Guard revels in the great adventure, and struggles with her doubts. A silenced composer, facing death, determines to capture the turmoil. An idealistic student becomes the 'corpse master' . . .More than fifty years on, the Cultural Revolution's scar runs through the heart of Chinese society, and through the souls of its citizens. Stationed in Beijing for the Guardian, Tania Branigan came to realise that this brutal and turbulent decade continues to propel and shape China to this day. Yet official suppression and personal trauma have conspired in national amnesia: it exists, for the most part, as an absence.Red Memory explores the stories of those driven to confront the era, who fear or yearn for its return. What happens to a society when you can no longer trust those closest to you? What happens to the present when the past is buried, exploited or redrawn? And how do you live with yourself when the worst is over?
£9.99
Faber & Faber Reverberation
£10.99
Faber & Faber Mary Said What She Said
Memory, open my heart. Let the past part my lips. The stars never lie. But how we misread them, bright drop after bright drop in the sea of night.Based on the letters of Mary Queen of Scots, Mary Said What She Said is the testimony of Mary Stuart as she awaits martyrdom, accused of involvement in the most notorious plots of the time. On the eve of her execution, after nineteen years in captivity, she tells of her passions and torments.Mary Said What She Said received its UK premiere at the Barbican Centre, London, in May 2024.
£10.00
Faber & Faber The Childrens Inquiry
£10.99
Faber & Faber Kyoto
£10.99
Faber & Faber QA
AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER NOW''The outstanding graphic novelist of his generation.'' Big Issue''Adrian Tomine has more ideas in twenty panels than novelists have in a lifetime.'' ZADIE SMITH''Tomine has both talent and a writer''s eye for the truth.'' NICK HORNBYAdrian Tomine began his professional career at the age of sixteen, and in the decades since, has made a name for himself as a bestselling graphic novelist, screenwriter, and New Yorker cover artist. Now, for the first time, he''s taking questions. Part personal history, part masterclass (illustrated throughout with photos, outtakes, and step-by-step process images), Q & A is an unprecedented look into Tomine''s working methods and a trove of insight, guidance, and advice for aspiring and practising creatives alike.
£12.99
Faber & Faber Jed Greenleaf
This thrilling adventure has it all! A huge heart, a fantastic plot and an irresistible superhero. I was swept away into Jed Greenleaf's world of magical oak forests, dastardly villains and sparkling dryads. I adored it!' Jasbinder BilanSkin of bark, soul of a hero . . . an astonishing standalone adventure from the bestselling author of The World of Podkin One-Ear.Albion city is governed by a puppet queen, secretly controlled by Lord Cromwell, and strange magic is afoot as six Guilds all compete to rule it. Although the Leaf Guild is the weakest, no one has reckoned with newcomer Jed Greenleaf''s extraordinary ability to transform into a half-tree, covered over with bark . . . he just needs to learn how to harness that power.Could he be the hero that the Guild needs to win at the Punchbowl tournament? It just might be that this year Jed can turn over a new leaf in the history books, and bring glory to the decaying Guild and peace t
£12.99
Faber & Faber An Actor Convalescing in Devon
He told me about some bloke who was sick and then got well by placing a poem by William Blake in his shirt pocket . . . Heading for the West Country by train, an actor takes the scenic route from Waterloo to spend a weekend with an old friend. He recalls staying there one summer with his late partner Michael, another actor. Glad to be alive but uncertain of his future, he shares stories and his thoughts about Shakespeare, friends, his career and the trials of his own health. Richard Nelson''s funny and compelling monologue opened at Hampstead Theatre, London, in March 2024.
£10.99
Faber & Faber Dont Go to Sleep in the Dark
Spine-chillingly creepy Halloween tales of horror from author of Waterstones Thriller of the Month, Uncle Paul: the ''grandmother of psycho-domestic noir'' (Sunday Times) for fans of Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith and Stranger Things.''Few people can chill the blood like Celia Fremlin.'' Telegraph''Grips like grim death.'' SpectatorI tried to open my mouth to call out again; but it was not my mouth that opened; it was a great beak, jutting out of my face, cruel and curved like a bird of prey ...In the high flats, up near the clouds, Hilda and her baby twins reach a fateful end ...An aunt feels foreboding about her niece''s new fiance - but the darkness comes from within ...A haunted babysitter experiences a little girl''s terror of The Hen With The Great Big Eyes ...One teenage girl''s evening home alone is ruined by a mysterious unexpected visit
£9.99