Search results for ""Faber Faber""

A classic wartime tale of a (real!) cat who saves London's kittens and finds refuge behind the doors of a famous publishing house.'This time we need to get you - get all of the kittens, safe out of London,' said Morgan decisively . . . 'To have a chance for a better life, well, let's just say, I've got an idea.'Morgan is a young orphan who lives off scavenging - until he finds a cosy home at a famous London publishing house. Over time he learns a trade - and soon becomes the very best book cat in the business. And then the Blitz begins. Morgan finds himself training up twenty odd kittens to be book cats, and then there is the small matter of secretly evacuating them out of London. Happily, Morgan has a plan.Set in war-torn London, charmingly illustrated, and full of heart and verve.'Charming.' Sunday Times'A sweet feline twist on the classic evacuee story.' The Guardian'A delightful book.' Books for Keeps

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Triple-Oscar-winning, world-renowned animator and author of the seminal book The Animator's Survival Kit Richard Williams' legendary career in the world of animation is brought to the page here for the first time.Written with his wife and collaborator, Imogen Sutton, Adventures in Animation follows the life and career of this pivotal figure in animated features, from the influential moment when, aged five, Williams saw Snow White, right through his career of more than sixty years. Over those decades, Williams created full-length features, short films, title sequences for films and hundreds of commercials all of which were graced by his characteristically elegant, sinuous lines and magnificent imagination. Williams' place in animation history is assured: he directed the Academy Award-winning 1971 adaptation of A Christmas Carol and perhaps most famously worked as Director of Animation on Who Framed Roger Rabbit, for which he won tw

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NOW A MAJOR SKY ATLANTIC SERIES'Unputdownable . . . fantastic and terrifying.' Nihal Arthanayake, RADIO 5The astonishing true story of 'one of the most startling police corruption scandals in a generation' (New York Times)Baltimore, 2015. Riots were erupting across the city. Drug and violent crime were surging, with homicides reaching their highest level in over two decades. For years, Sgt Wayne Jenkins and his elite team of plain-clothed officers - the Gun Trace Task Force - had been the city's lauded heroes, working to get drugs and guns off the streets. But all the while they had been stealing drugs and money and gaming the system. Because who would believe the dealers, the smugglers or the people who had simply been going about their daily business over the word of the city's elite task force?'A work of journalism that not only chronicles the rise and fall of a corrupt police unit, but can stand as the inevitable coda to the half-century of disaster that is the American drug war.' David Simon

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Lose yourself in the thrilling political intrigue and tangled love affairs of wartime Egypt: Durrell's epic modern classic, introduced by Alaa Al Aswany (bestselling author of The Yacoubian Building).Every interpretation of reality is based upon a unique position ...As the threat of world war looms over the city of Alexandria, an exiled Anglo-Irish schoolteacher unravels his erotic obsession with two women: Melissa, a fragile dancer, and Justine, a glamorous married Egyptian woman. Through conversations with Balthazar, a doctor and mystic, these intricate love affairs are cast in an ominous, sinister new light, as his private fixations become entangled with a mysterious murder plot ... One of the twentieth century's greatest masterpieces, rich in political and sexual intrigue, Lawrence Durrell's 'investigation of modern love' in the Alexandria Quartet set the world alight. Published in 1958, a year after the sensational Justine, the kaleidoscopic Balthazar burns just as brightly today.'Legendary ... Casts a spell ... A fine storyteller. Reader, watch out!' Jan Morris, Guardian'A brave and brazen work ... Lush and grandiose.' Independent 'One of the very best novelists of our time ... [such] beauty.' New York Times Book ReviewVOLUME TWO OF LAWRENCE DURRELL'S ALEXANDRIA QUARTET

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Public Property was Andrew Motion's first collection of poetry after being appointed Poet Laureate. In it, he negotiates the very space of poetry, moving between private and public realms, pondering each from the other's borders. In the opening series of idylls he conjures the expeditionary narratives of a rural childhood, in scenes as precisely remembered as they are irretrievable. Elsewhere he reconsiders moments from the Victorian past from reticent and surprising angles, and elsewhere again he tackles distinctly contemporary themes and situations. The final section of the book contains a number of elegies and love poems, written in a variety of lyric forms, which provoke concerns that are among the most critical in poetry: What is public art? To whom do our most private sentiments belong?

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An iBooks Book of the Year 2019, 'Our favourite debut ... a glorious, empowering, coming of age NY story.''An electric debut' New York Times 'Exhilarating' Claire Messud 'Deeply affecting' Salman RushdieSeventeen-year-old Lucy Adler, a street-smart, trash-talking baller, is often the only girl on the public courts. Lucy's inner life is a contradiction. She's by turns quixotic and cynical, insecure and self-possessed and, despite herself, is in unrequited love with her best friend and pick-up teammate Percy, son of a prominent New York family who is trying to resist his upper crust fate.As Lucy questions accepted notions of success, bristling against her own hunger for male approval, she is drawn into the world of a pair of provocative female artists living in what remains of New York's bohemia. In her hit US debut, Dana Czapnik memorably captures the voice of a young woman in the first flush of freedom searching for an authentic way to live and love.

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Emma Brockes is thirty-seven, lives alone, and wants children. She is in a relationship (good!) but they aren't doing the parenting together (weird!). Emma needs sperm, a doctor, and not to bankrupt herself. And that's just the beginning - there are a million choices to make when taking the untraditional route to motherhood. Then there's the uninvited opinions, scolding and general hysteria that always accompanies a woman's decision to have (or not to have) children. With generous heart and humour, Panic & Joy examines essential questions about motherhood and the modern family.

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FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF SUNBURN AND DREAM GIRL'Gripping' Irish Independent'Lippman writes with clarity and power.' STEPHEN KING'A gritty story, vivid characters and a fast-moving, twisting plot.' Washington IndependentA suburban mother. A secret life.Heloise is a single mum who runs her own business and keeps herself to herself. But Heloise's business is one that takes place in discreet hotel rooms. For the right payment, she can be the woman of your dreams.But now her accountant is starting to ask questions, her long-time bodyguard is hinting at new dangers, and in the local news, a so-called suburban madam has been found dead in her car.With nothing as it seems, can Heloise secure the safety of herself and her son?'A riveting, engrossing, and at times, sordid story.' 5* reader review'AMAZING! I did NOT see the twists coming at all!' 5* reader review'All kinds of surprises in this fun and exciting thriller' 5* reader review'Addictive as always!' 5* reader review

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This new revised edition brings Mike Leigh's career up-to-date, including his film about J.M.W. Turner, Mr. Turner, and his epic masterpiece, Peterloo.Five-time Oscar nominee and BAFTA winner, the only British director to have won the top prize at both Cannes (for Secrets & Lies) and Venice (for Vera Drake) - Mike Leigh is unquestionably one of world cinema's pre-eminent figures. Now, in this definitive career-length interview, he reflects on all that has gone into the making of his unique body of work.In their commingling of bleakness and humour, Leigh's films recreate the tragi-comic world of people whose everyday lives are far from glamorous: a world in which 'the done thing' usually prevails, contrary to our inner hopes, wants or needs. Leigh's work has always reflected its times and entered the vernacular, whether the harsh studies of Meantime and Naked or the humour of the now-legendary Abigail's Party and Nuts in May. Above all, Leigh is an accomplished storyteller, and these films deal with universal themes: births, marriages and deaths, parenthood and failed relationships, families and their secrets and lies. Within these pages Leigh speaks to Amy Raphael more openly than ever before of his life and inimitable working method, revealing himself as passionate, forthright, no sufferer of fools, but the owner of a dry and playful Mancunian wit.

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Paul Auster's novels have earned him the reputation as 'one of America's most spectacularly inventive writers.' He has also brought this sense of invention to the art of screenwriting, producing Smoke, Blue in the Face, Lulu on the Bridge and The Inner Life of Martin Frost.Smoke tells the story of a novelist, a cigar store manager and a black teenager who unexpectedly cross paths. Blue in the Face is a largely improvised comedy directly inspired by Smoke. In Lulu on the Bridge, jazz musician Izzy Maurer is accidently hit with a bullet during a performance in a New York club, propelling him on a strange and frightening journey. The Inner Life of Martin Frost follows the unsettling experiences that befall a writer who borrows a friend's country house.The volume also contains production notes, as well as interviews with Paul Auster about his work in film.

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Austin, working on his Hollywood screenplay, is disturbed by the arrival of his estranged brother, Lee, just returned from three months in the desert. During a brief spell of uneasy cohabitation in their absent mother's house, Lee employs himself as a door-to-door burglar before killing his brother's film idea by pitching his own to Austin's producer. But Lee is no writer and the brothers must strike a deal, escalating sibling rivalry to fever pitch in the blazing Californian heat. Sam Shephard's True West was first performed at the Magic Theatre, San Francisco, in 1980 and has since become recognised as an American classic.

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'Extraordinary, funny, tender, poetic . . . The story that emerges is Britain's.' Times Literary SupplementWith a new introduction by George Shaw In a forensic dissection of Britain's souring landscape Gordon Burn tells the tale of Ray Cruddas, a light entertainer effecting a semi-dignified retreat from a fading career, who returns to the unnamed northern town of his youth.

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'Immaculately written, inspiring, sad and elegiac.' Daily TelegraphWith a new introduction by David PeaceDuncan Edwards played his first game for Manchester United at the age of fifteen and Walter Winterbottom, then England manager, called him 'the spirit of British football'. On £15-a-week, Edwards was the most prized of the Busby Babes. Then in February 1958 came Munich.Half a decade later George Best represented United reborn. 'Georgie' of the boutiques and dolly birds; 'El Beatle' of the European Cup in '68 and European Player of the Year; in the opinion of Pele, the most naturally talented footballer that ever lived. Retired at 27 and reduced to the role of Chelsea barfly and tabloid perennial; George, where did it all go wrong?

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*Includes an exclusive new chapter*'Excellent' Guardian'Hugely enjoyable' Irish Times'Dazzling' LRB 'Fascinating' New Statesman 'An absolute must-read' GQAn NME and BBC Culture Book of the Year 2020For a while, Sweet Dreams were made of this.From the testimony of the people who lived it, comes Dylan Jones' masterful history of the Blitz kids, synth-pop and the style press, from 1975 to 1985. 'Few music scenes have received more opprobrium than the New Romantics. A bunch of fame-grabbing clothes-horses? Certainly. But also, a progressive force that opened new routes for music while embracing most genders, ethnicities and sexual preferences.' MOJO 'Compelling reading for those who lived and breathed the indulgence of the era without realising its significance or contemplating its legacy.' Simon Armitage 'Dylan Jones explains how a bunch of penniless nightclub show-offs morphed into pop royalty in the 1980s . . . An excitable patchwork of interviews, punctuated with gossip and pertinent theory.' UNCUT'It's all here: the swishing, the androgynous preening, the sweetly-dreamt synth-pop splendour of early '80s Britain. Something was happening, and Mr. Jones knew what it was.' Barney Hoskyns

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The naming of Cats is a difficult matter,It isn't just one of your holiday games;You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatterWhen I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.So begins one of the best-known poetry collections of all time. The practical cats need no introduction, but this stunning new full-colour version, illustrated by Júlia Sardà, is the perfect companion to Old Toffer's Dogs. Whether you are a cat or a dog person, you will be enchanted by Júlia's highly original interpretation.

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Faber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles. 'I have quite changed my mind. I am going to run away and become a boy.'In these three stories, written by Djuna Barnes under the pseudonym Lydia Steptoe, three characters find themselves on the brink of a sexual awakening - accompanied by guns, whips, and worldly innuendo.A fourteen-year-old girl plans to become 'a virago', until her mother intercepts her first tryst by dressing up as her male lover. A boy of the same age is lured into the forest by his father's mistress. A woman of forty falls in love and longs to kill herself, so unbearable is the return of the youth she thought she wanted. 'Alice', she tells herself, 'be a man.'Barnes makes gender and desire seem slippery and joyful - and makes the fictional Lydia Steptoe seem like a writer for our time.Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work.

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Could peace come after? After what? Who will we be?Easter morning, 1916. Gunshots ring out in the Dublin streets. In her suburban sitting-room Hanna prepares for revolution. Frank walks through the crowds calling for peace, while John recalls the trenches and sees a city soaked in blood. Eighteen-year-old William fearfully reports to the barracks for duty, determined to serve the British army with honour. Inspired by true events, this absorbing play weaves movement and folk song into a stirring tale of militarism, corruption and the power of rebellion.'Vibrant and shocking. A fine new play [with] countless stirring scenes. that boils over with the chaos of war. Nunnery wears her research lightly and expresses her ideas in tumbling poetry, lively dialogue and haunting song. Not a syllable or beat is wasted.' Guardian

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In a hard-boiled city of crooks, grifts and rackets lurk a pair of toughs: Box and _____. They're the kind of men capable of extracting apologies and reparations, of teaching you a chilling lesson. They seldom think twice, and ask very few questions.Until one night over the poker table, they encounter a pulp writer with wild ideas and an unscrupulous private detective, leading them into what is either a classic mystery, a senseless maze of corpses, or an inextricable fever dream . . .Drunk on cinematic and literary influence, Muscle is a slice of noir fiction in collapse, a ceaselessly imaginative story of violence, boredom and madness.

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When eighteen-year-old Michael visits the Hanbury's remote family home he is captivated by their bohemian lifestyle. Years later, when he marries the strong-willed, beautiful Rebecca, he is secretly hoping to create his own version of that free-thinking family, but after the birth of their first child, their marriage begins to flounder. The chance to escape once more to his friend's country house comes as a welcome relief, until he discovers a family changed, and his own romantic notions of country life begin to disintegrate . . .

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Ralph Loman works in an unsatisfying job, for a free London newspaper, when Francine Snaith, a temporary secretary for a corporate finance firm, unexpectedly crosses his path at a party. Her beauty ignites a blaze of excitement in his troubled heart. But Francine is ravenous for attention, driven by a thirst for conquest, and when Ralph tries politely to extricate himself, he finds he is bound by chains of consequence from which it seems there is no escape. The Temporary paints a merciless portrait of the cut and thrust of modern romance, work and life.

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Thomas Bradshaw and Tonie Swann are experiencing the classic symptoms of marriage in its middle years: comfortable house, happy-enough daughter and an eerie sense that life might be happening elsewhere. Then Tonie accepts a big promotion at work and Thomas agrees to become a stay-at-home dad. While Thomas is suddenly faced with the daily silence of an empty house, Tonie finds herself alive to previously unimagined possibilities. And at the head of the family, the ageing Bradshaw parents continue their marital dynamic of bickering and petty undermining.

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The poems in Sylvia Plath's Ariel, including many of her best-known such as 'Lady Lazarus', 'Daddy', 'Edge' and 'Paralytic', were all written between the publication in 1960 of Plath's first book, The Colossus, and her death in 1963. 'If the poems are despairing, vengeful and destructive, they are at the same time tender, open to things, and also unusually clever, sardonic, hardminded . . . They are works of great artistic purity and, despite all the nihilism, great generosity . . . the book is a major literary event.' A. Alvarez in the Observer This beautifully designed edition forms part of a series of ten titles celebrating Faber's publishing over the decades.

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André and Madeleine have been in love for over fifty years. This weekend, as their daughters visit, something feels unusual. A bunch of flowers arrive, but who sent them? A woman from the past turns up, but who is she? And why does André feel like he isn't there at all?Christopher Hampton's translation of Florian Zeller's The Height of the Storm was first performed at Richmond Theatre, London, and opened in the West End at Wyndham's Theatre in October 2018.

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people herehave becomethe peoplethey're pretending to be.'Sam Shepard's language is sparse and crystal clear. His words appear modest, but they have huge scope.'Wim WendersThis volume is the first collection of Sam Shepard's autobiographical fiction and poetry.It inspired the award-winning film, Paris, Texas.'Sam Shepard is the greatest U.S. playwright of his generation. Since 1964 he has mapped out a huge mythic territory...like Whitman, his is vast and contains multitudes, his plays soar over the empty tracts of the Midwest, celebrate the space, energy and naive optimism of the new-found lands.' Time Out

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**QUIETLY HOSTILE - THE HILARIOUS NEW BOOK FROM THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR - IS AVAILABE TO PRE-ORDER NOW**ONE OF STYLIST'S BEST NEW BOOKS FOR 2020'This is an unforgettable book.' Roxane Gay Meditations on the terror of love; tips for getting your disgusting meat carcass ready for some new, hot sex; a frank self-evaluation upon the occasion of one's 30th birthday; and, finally, the answer to the question on everyone's minds: Would dying alone really be so terrible? Blogger and comedian Samantha Irby covers it all with wit and honesty - and serves it with a side of Instagram frittata.

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'Lines off' is a term used for lines spoken from the wings of a theatre, or off-camera in a film. It was while Hugo Williams was out of circulation following transplant surgery that he wrote the poems for this new collection - the first since I Knew the Bride (2014), shortlisted for the Forward and T. S. Eliot prizes. From youthful days 'upside down in the Crazy Room, / rising and falling on the Haunted Swing', he takes us to distant countries, both actual and metaphorical; participates in the 'mortal pantomime' of the hospital ward with humorous frankness; and offers a percipient account of growing older, with all its attendant doubts and disturbances. Autobiographical, psychological, remedial, Lines Off heralds the return of this acclaimed poet, back to the stage of the page, offering us 'the performance of a lifetime'.

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From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Call Me by Your Name and Find Me, a memoir of an extraordinary life.'[A] mesmerizing portrait of a now vanished world. Aciman's story of Alexandria is the story of his own family, a Jewish family with Italian and Turkish roots that tied its future to Egypt and made its home there for three generations, only to find itself peremptorily expelled by the Government in the early 1960's. It is the story of a fractious clan of dreamers and con men and the emotional price they would pay for exile, the story of a young boy's coming of age and his memories of the city he loved in his youth.Writing in lucid, lyrical prose, Mr. Aciman does an exquisite job of conjuring up the daily rhythms and rituals of his family's life: their weekly trips to the movies, their daily jaunts to the beach, their internecine squabbles over everything from religion to money to the pronunciation of words. There are some wonderfully vivid scenes here, as strange and marvelous as something in Garcia Marquez, as comical and surprising as something in Chekhov.' Michiko Kakutani, New York TimesAciman's latest novel, Find Me, is now available for preorder in paperback.

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'Magnificent.' New York Times'Unforgettable.' Times Literary Supplement'Exquisite.' New YorkerFrom the Sunday Times bestselling author of Call Me by Your Name and Find Me, now available to preorder in paperback.From a youthful infatuation with a cabinet maker in a small Italian fishing village, to a passionate yet sporadic affair with a woman in New York, to an obsession with a man he meets at a tennis court, Enigma Variations charts one man's path through the great loves of his life. Paul's intense desires, losses and longings draw him closer, not to a defined orientation, but to an understanding that 'heartache, like love, like low-grade fevers, like the longing to reach out and touch a hand across the table, is easy enough to live down'.André Aciman casts a shimmering light over each facet of desire, to probe how we ache, want and waver, and ultimately how we sometimes falter and let go of the very ones we want the most. We may not know what we want. We may remain enigmas to ourselves and to others. But sooner or later we discover who we've always known we were.

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The figure of the young American poet living in Paris is familiar from Paul Auster's celebrated novels; here that character is realised in Auster's own stunningly accomplished verse. His penetrating and charged poetry resembles little else in recent American literature. This collection of his poems, translations, and composition notes from early in his career furnish yet further evidence of his literary mastery.Taut, densely lyrical and everywhere informed by a powerful and subtle music, this selection begins with the compact verse fragments of Spokes (written when Auster was in his early twenties) and Unearth, continues on through the more ample meditations of Wall Writing, Disappearances, Effigies, Fragments From the Cold, Facing the Music, and White Spaces, then moves further back in time to include Auster's revealing translations of many of the French poets who influenced his own writing - including Paul Eluard, André Breton, Tristan Tzara, Philippe Soupault, Robert Desnos and René Char - as well as the provocative and previously unpublished 'Notes From A Composition Book' (1967). An introduction by Norman Finkelstein connects biographical elements to a consideration of the work, and takes in Auster's early literary and philosophical influences. For those interested in Paul Auster's novels - the now-classic New York Trilogy or The Brooklyn Follies - this book is an invaluable opportunity to witness his early development. Powerful, sometimes haunting, cool, precise and limpid, this view from the past to the present will appeal to those unfamiliar with this aspect of Auster's work, as well as those already acquainted with his poetry. Readers will agree that Auster's grasp on language and the world around him is not only questioning, but mysterious and very human, perceptive, and deeply compelling

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It's not easy being the WORST at everything!Hack and Whack are the very worst Vikings in the village - until a fierce and stinky berserker moves in - NEXT DOOR!WILL the brand new school help the twins outwit this villain and his vicious dog, Muddy Butt?And will Twisty Pants, Dirty Ulf and Elsa Gold-Hair help vanquish this foul fiend?'As joyously anarchic as Horrid Henry.' Cressida Cowell'A great new series for early readers.' BookTrust'A wonderfully absurd, anarchic romp.' Sarah McIntyre'Immensely appealing to children of five and up.' Literary Review

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This viking duo will give Horrid Henry a run for his money!What if your parents WANTED you to behave badly?Set in the snowy fjords of a Viking kingdom, the terrible twins, Hack and Whack, are proud to be the best worst vikings. Nothing stops the marauding pair as they steal boats, loot a birthday party, track a troll and sail off to raid Bad Island with their friends Twisty Pants and Dirty Ulf.Well, almost nothing . . .With whip-smart dialogue, and accompanied by Dennis the Menace style anarchic cartoon imagery, this series is as sharp, funny and compelling as you would expect from the reigning Queen of Comedy.'As joyously anarchic as Horrid Henry . . . will have your children laughing out loud.' Cressida Cowell'A treat for kids. A wonderfully absurd, anarchic romp.' Sarah McIntyre

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WINNER OF THE GANDYS CHILDREN'S TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEARMaya has to escape. She's on the run in a country she doesn't know and has no idea who to trust. Raul is escaping too - travelling back to his home where a terrible tragedy happened, ready to stir up trouble.When their paths collide in the middle of the jungle, the sparks begin to fly. As modern world corruption meets the magic and legends of ancient times, can Maya draw on her hidden light to find the way through to the truth?A book about light, about magic and belief, and about unlocking your own potential, from the critically acclaimed author of Fish Boy and The Boy Who Hit Play.'A nail bitingly tense and fast paced adventure. Exciting, inspiring and though provoking' Joy Court, LoveReading4Kids

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Dorothy Molloy was a star in the making when Faber prepared her debut Hare Soup (2004) for publication, before tragedy struck, and she died four days before advance copies arrived. With its distinctive and unsettling mix of comedy and complicity, dark humour and disturbance (a feminist burlesque that has seen her work christened as 'gurlesque'), Hare Soup stripped the veneer from the niceties of relations in family life and the Catholic church, turning its inventive and sexually charged gaze to corruption and abuse in our most private spaces. The book rightly won accolades and admirers, and was followed by a further, posthumous collection, Gethsemane Day (2006) that was prepared from typescript. The Poems of Dorothy Molloy gathers these two collections alongside her manuscript work, which appeared as Long-Distance Swimmer (Salmon, 2009), and the remaining body of unpublished material to present a complete edition of poems to meet the growing readership of this startling talent.

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One hundred years after his birth, W. S. Graham's words seem more awake than ever. His subtle exploration of the paradoxes of language, his passionate conviction of the importance of art and the love he expresses for the people and landscapes of his native Clydeside and adopted home of Cornwall attract more readers each year. In startlingly original poems, he celebrates family and friendship and probes the limits of our understanding of the world and our place in it. Graham's New Collected Poems (2004) marked a crucial point in the growth of his reputation, bringing together for the first time all the poems of his seven collections as well as some of the unpublished material that had come to light since his death in 1986. Now, as we honour his centenary, this New Selected Poems presents his best and most characteristic: from his epic seafaring masterpiece 'The Nightfishing' to the quirky metaphysics of 'Implements in their Places', as well as a selection of his early neo-romantic poems, which Graham himself believed were essential to a full understanding of his oeuvre, and some remarkable uncollected work. There is no better way to make the acquaintance of one of the greatest British poets of the twentieth century.

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If you enjoyed UNORTHODOX, you will be riveted by Rebekah Roberts . . .'An absolutely crackling, unputdownable mystery. I loved it.' GILLIAN FLYNNFresh out of journalism school, Rebekah Roberts is working for the New York Tribune, trying to make a name for herself. Assigned a story about the murder of a woman in Brooklyn, Rebekah finds a case from inside a closed, secretive Hasidic Jewish community - the same Brooklyn neighbourhood her estranged mother was brought up in.Shocked to discover that the victim is set to be buried without an autopsy, Rebekah knows there is a story to uncover, but getting to the truth won't be easy - in the cloistered world her mother rebelled against, it's clear she's not welcome, and everyone she meets has a secret to keep, most of all from an outsider.

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Wearily, I take the path to the river, there in the cool to fill my being with the sounds of my sister-being, to refresh myself in the modest scents of pigeonwood and mitzeerie, to let my gaze end in a tangle of monkey ropes and fern arches and the slowly descending leaves, and to find rest, all day long, all night long.A young slave girl accompanies her owner on an expedition into the African interior in search of a mythical city. In unfamiliar terrain, the party gets lost. One by one, our narrator's companions disappear, leaving her to take refuge in the hollow of a baobab tree. There, she finds the space and will to reflect upon her life's journey, telling her story to the boabab itself. This powerful fable, translated from Wilma Stockenström's original Afrikaans by Nobel Prize-winner J. M. Coetzee, is a remarkable portrait of dislocation and empowerment. It is also a brilliant insight into Coetzee's craft as a writer.

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The Armistice of 1918 brought ceasefire to the war on the Western Front, but 'the Great War' would not as hoped be 'the war to end all wars'. In this affecting selection, the Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, guides us deep into the act and root of 'armistice': its stoppage or 'stand' of arms, its search for truce and ceasefire. In 100 poems, our most cherished poets of the Great War speak alongside those from other conflicts and cultures, so that we hear some of the lesser-heard voices of war, including wives, families, those left behind. These poems of war and peace memorialise the horror and the tragedy of conflict. At the same time, in armistice, they become a record of renewal and a testimony to hope.

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ONE OF THE WHITE REVIEW'S BEST BOOKS OF 2019Elizabeth Hardwick's iconic essay collection Seduction and Betrayal is a radical portrait of women and literature, reissued with a new introduction by Deborah Levy.'Hardwick's sentences are burned in my brain.' - Susan SontagSidelined. Betrayed. Killed off. Elizabeth Hardwick dissects the history of women and literature. In her most virtuoso work of criticism, she explores the lives of the Brontës, Woolf, Eliot and Plath; the fate of literary wives such as Zelda Fitzgerald and Jane Carlyle; and the destinies of fictional heroines from Richardson's Clarissa to Ibsen's Nora. With fierce empathy and biting wit, Hardwick mines their childhoods, families, and personalities to probe the costs of sex, love, and marriage. Shattering the barrier between writing and life, she asks who is the seducer and who the seduced; who the victim and who the victor.First published in 1974, yet both urgently timely and timeless, Seduction and Betrayal explodes the conventions of the essay: and the result is nothing less than a reckoning.

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'A darkly comic masterpiece.' Daily Telegraph'Harold Pinter remains pretty much incomparable as a playwright . . . a brilliant play.' Time Out'A great, disturbing play.' Guardian'Mr Pinter's terrifying blend of pathos and hatred fuses unforgettably into the stuff of art.' Sunday TimesStanley Webber is visited in his boarding house by strangers, Goldberg and McCann. An innocent-seeming birthday party for Stanley turns into a nightmare.The Birthday Party was first performed in 1958 and is now a modern classic, produced and studied throughout the world. This edition was published to coincide with a revival at the Harold Pinter Theatre in 2018, ten years after the playwright's death, and includes the full, reset text.

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WINNER OF THE MICHAEL MURPHY MEMORIAL PRIZEPOETRY BOOK SOCIETY CHOICEIn the language of fan fiction, a 'Mary Sue' is an idealised and implausibly flawless character: a female archetype that can infuriate audiences for its perceived narcissism.Such is the setting for this brilliant and important debut by Sophie Collins. In a series of verse and prose collages, Who Is Mary Sue? exposes the presumptive politics behind writing and readership: the idea that men invent while women reflect; that a man writes of the world outside while a woman will turn to the interior.Part poetry and part reportage, at once playful and sincere, these fictive-factive miniatures deploy original writing and extant quotation in a mode of pure invention. In so doing, they lift up and lay down a revealing sequence of masks and mirrors that disturb the reflection of authority.A work of captivation and correction, this is a book that will resonate with anyone concerned with identity, shame, gender, trauma, composition and culture: everyone, in other words, who wishes to live openly and think fearlessly in the modern world. Who Is Mary Sue? is a work for our times and a question for our age: it is a handbook for all those willing to reimagine prescriptive notions of identity and selfhood.

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'A superb, highly original thriller . . . I loved it.' Peter James'Matches Grisham at his best.' Sunday TimesActor Tommy Jump isn't getting the roles he once did. But as he prepares to give up the stage he gets a call from the FBI, with an offer too lucrative to refuse. For $300,000 all Tommy has to do is spend six months in prison, acting as a failed bank robber and befriend a fellow inmate who has information which could take down a Mexican drug cartel. But when the stakes are this high, does Tommy have what it takes to get away with this audacious last act?

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Another exciting adventure by the hilarious Harry Hill - this time taking Matt Millz and the team to the Edinburgh Festival!Matt's dream of becoming a stand-up comic is fading. Six months on from his success at the Apollo, the gigs have dried up, and it's back to the daily drudge of schoolwork for Matt and his pals. But then his twelve-year-old manager Kitty has a brainwave: if they can persuade their teachers to take a school play up to the Edinburgh Festival, they could hold a comedy night too.But Matt's got a rival new school-mate Jamie who is pushing to be in the comedy line-up. And Jamie is good. But is he too good to be true?Packed with action, clever twists and great characters, this third Matt Millz adventure will appeal to every aspiring young comedian.

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This is the story of Dunkirk and of the men who planned it (insofar as it was planned) and of the men who carried it out, and of their ships. Mr Divine, who was himself with the small boats, writes with the authority of direct knowledge. He had the assistance of the men who were intimately concerned with planning and organising the operation. This is the true story of Dunkirk from its almost nebulous beginnings to the astonishing triumph of its end.

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O Positive is the long-awaited debut collection of poetry from Joe Dunthorne, and it has all the appeal of his widely acclaimed fiction. Adopting a sunny, genial tone, Dunthorne lures the reader to darker places, exploring death and dread, failure and regret - the 'lounge of our suffering'. Often, he catches us off-guard: a 'whiplash' effect where poems shift from laughter to slaughter in a moment. Impertinent owls, an immersive theatre troupe, ancient men from the Great War and idiot balloonists - such characters dramatise our human fancies and foibles, joining the protagonist in scenarios both humorously bizarre and all-too-familiar. These performances serve to probe and unpeel the layers of the self - all the way down to the raw.

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Thom Jones's magnificent collection of stories presents a brutal and authentic vision of the human condition, in a world without mercy or redemption. The Pugilist at Rest gives us an America of Vietnam vets and ex-boxers, of bitter lovers in trailer parks, of lives passing in brilliant epileptic flickers. These ferocious, semi-autobiographical stories form the debut collection by a distinctive and hugely talented writer. Thom Jones was discovered as a writer relatively late in life, in his forties, by the fiction editors at the New Yorker, who published many of Jones's stories from the early 1990s onwards. The title story of this collection went on to win the O. Henry Award for Best Short Story.

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Ever since her sister, Agnes, died, Pearl has a tradition every time it snows. She makes a person out of snow. A snow sister. It makes Christmas feel a little less lonely.On Christmas Eve, her father receives a letter about a long-lost relative's will. Is their luck about to change? In anticipation of a better Christmas, Pearl goes to beg credit at Mr Noble's grocery to get ingredients for a Christmas pudding. But she is refused, and chased down the street where she is hit by a hansom cab. The snow is falling so hard that they can't take her home. She'll have to stay at Flintfield Manor overnight, in a haunted room... Will Pearl make it home for Christmas?

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NEW AND UPDATED EDITIONA magisterial and profoundly perceptive survey of Britain's post-war role on the global stage, from Suez to Brexit. 'The fullest long-run political and diplomatic narrative yet of Britain's fateful, tragi-comic road to Brexit.' DAVID KYNASTON'An instant classic . . . Stephens is a master of historical codebreaking.' PETER HENNESSEYAward-winning Financial Times journalist Philip Stephens paints a fascinating portrait of sixty years - from Suez to Brexit - as Britain struggles to reconcile its waning power with its past glory. Drawing on decades of personal contact and interviews with senior politicians and diplomats in Britain, the United States and across the capitals of Europe, Britain Alone is a magisterial and deeply perceptive history of our nation and how we arrived at the state we are in.'Commanding . . . Rarely if ever, in the history of the British state since 1707, has one half of Britain's ruling elite committed an act of policy viewed with such absolute contempt by the other half; and rarely has that contempt been expressed with such elegance, such fluency, and such a devastating wealth of supporting detail, as in this mighty survey.' SCOTSMAN'Profoundly knowledgeable.' CHRIS PATTEN'Compelling.' LAWRENCE FREEDMAN'A fascinating history.' IRISH TIMES'A magnificent, exhilarating book' PROSPECT

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I had been shot. A bullet in my back. I fell. Where did I fall? I fell from a great height, it seemed, into a painting in a gallery in a great City. I found myself returning across centuries and generations to the end of my age. I had been caught by the Artist in what seemed the womb of unexpected being in which one becomes sensitive to the end one has reached and to a new beginning. It was an end, it was a new beginning one was called upon to probe and discover.We may dream, while still alive, of dying. But the dream is soon forgotten as are the edges and corners of a re-lived life of which we dream. It is buried in the unconscious. We know that life fades into death but, in what degree, does life re-live itself as it dreams of dying?The Ghost of Memory is a novel about life and death or rather - to put it somewhat differently - about the close, almost indefinable cross-culturalities between moments of life and death. This is played out through a man who is mistakenly shot as a terrorist - he sees himself

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