Search results for ""Faber Faber""

'That is how it works in the City. Every time you think you know the answer to a question, you discover that the question makes no sense . . .'This is the story of Anna Blume and her journey to find her lost brother, William, in the unnamed City. Like the City itself, however, it is a journey that is doomed, and so all that is left is Anna's unwritten account of what happened.Paul Auster takes us to an unspecified and devastated world in which the self disappears amidst the horrors that surround us. But this is not just an imaginary, futuristic world: like the settings of Kafka stories, it is one that echoes our own, and in doing so addresses some of our darker legacies. In the Country of Last Things is a tense, psychological take on the dystopian novel. It continues Auster's deep exploration of his central themes: the modern city, the mysteries of storytelling, and the elusive and unstable nature of truth.

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I was supposed to be having the time of my life.When Esther Greenwood wins an internship on a New York fashion magazine in 1953, she is elated, believing she will finally realise her dream to become a writer. But in between the cocktail parties and piles of manuscripts, Esther's life begins to slide out of control. She finds herself spiralling into serious depression as she grapples with difficult relationships and a society which refuses to take her aspirations seriously.The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath's only novel, was originally published in 1963 under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. The novel is partially based on Plath's own life and descent into mental illness, and has become a modern classic.

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A beautiful new gift edition of Ted Hughes's The Iron Woman, the incredible sequel to The Iron Man.The streaming shape reared . . . like a sudden wall of cliff, pouring cataracts of black mud and clotted, rooty lumps of reeds.Mankind for has polluted the seas, lakes and rivers. The Iron Woman has come to take revenge.Lucy understands the Iron Woman's rage and she too wants to save the water creatures from their painful deaths. But she also wants to save her town from total destruction.She needs help. Who better to call on but Hogarth and the Iron Man . . . ?A sequel and companion volume to Ted Hughes' The Iron Man, this new, child-friendly setting will be treasured by a new generation of readers.'A beautiful new edition . . . wonderfully imagined, hugely challenging, modern myth.' Carousel

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The iconic debut novel by 'one of the greatest writers of our era' (Hilary Mantel) and 'the Irish novelist everyone should read' (Colm Tóibín).Elizabeth Reegan, after years of freedom - and loneliness - marries into the enclosed Irish village of her upbringing. The children are not her own; her husband is straining to break free from the servile security of the police force; and her own life, threatened by illness, seems to be losing the last vestiges of its purpose. Moving between tragedy and savage comedy, desperation and joy, John McGahern's first novel is one of haunting power.'Marvellous.' Susan Hill, Times'Wise and compelling ... Elegiac and graceful.' David Mitchell'I have admired, even loved, John McGahern's work since his first novel.' Melvyn Bragg'Reminds one of the young Joyce ... McGahern is the real thing.' Spectator

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Poet, dramatist, critic and editor, T. S. Eliot was one of the defining figures of twentieth-century poetry. This edition of The Complete Poems and Plays, published for the first time in paperback, includes all of his verse and work for the stage, from Prufrock and Other Observations (1917) to Four Quartets (1943), and includes such literary landmarks as The Waste Land, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats and Murder in the Cathedral.'Each year Eliot's presence reasserts itself at a deeper level, to an audience that is surprised to find itself more chastened, more astonished, more humble.' Ted Hughes

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The hugely acclaimed novel of '70s football and the turmoil of the game's most charismatic and controversial manager, from the bestselling author of GB84 and Red or Dead.One of Mike Atherton's 'Top Ten Best Sports Books' in The TimesIn 1974 the brilliant and controversial Brian Clough made perhaps his most eccentric decision: he accepted the position of Leeds United manager. A successor to Don Revie, his bitter adversary, Clough was to last just 44 days.In one of the most acclaimed British novels of recent years - subsequently made into a film starring Michael Sheen - David Peace takes us into the mind and thoughts of Ol' Big 'Ead himself, and brings vividly to life one of football's most complex and fascinating characters.

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In this series, a contemporary poet selects and introduces a poet of the past. By their choice of poems and by the personal and critical reactions they express in their prefaces, the editors offer insights into their own work as well as providing an accessible and passionate introduction to some of the greatest poets in our literature.Emily Dickinson (1830-86) was born in Amherst, Massachussetts, where she lived most of her life as a recluse, seldom leaving the house or receiving visitors. She published just a handful of poems in her lifetime, her first collection appearing posthumously in 1890.

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In this series, a contemporary poet selects and introduces a poet of the past. By their choice of poems and by the personal and critical reactions they express in their prefaces, the editors offer insights into their own work as well as providing an accessible and passionate introduction to some of the greatest poets in our literature.Ted Hughes (1930-98) was born in Yorkshire. His first book, The Hawk in the Rain, was published in 1957. His last collection, Birthday Letters, was published in 1998 and won the Whitbread Book of the Year, the Forward Prize and the T. S. Eliot Prize. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1984 and appointed to the Order of Merit in 1998.

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'Easily the year's best Hollywood biog.' Independent on Sunday'Ball Of Fire reveals all about house- wife superstar Lucille Ball. She made the top-rated TV show in America before her husband's serial adulteries practically sunk it.' Sunday HeraldTo viewers all over the world, Lucille Ball remains the ultimate screwball housewife, getting in and out of outlandish scrapes with hilarous finesse. But Stefan Kanfer's biography looks behind the image, tracing Ball's comedic genius to its beginnings in a lonely childhood in upstate New York. She yearned to make people laugh, to attain stardom and love. Then a Cuban bandleader called Desi came into her life to make her wealthy and famous -- and nearly destroyed her in the process. Kanfer chronicles the runaway success of I Love Lucy, the fiery marriage and eventual split from Desi, and Ball's struggle to manage both a business empire and her own rebellious children. 'A wonderful and poignant book . . . Kanfer portays Lucille Ball as insatiably anxious and insecure, a woman whose search for a father-figure would only ever find the unlikely and unholdable Desi . . . Kanfer pulls no punches over Lucy the pain in the neck but he gives a superb picture of how she and Desi changed television.' David Thomson

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A Beautiful Mind is Sylvia Nasar's award-winning biography about the mystery of the human mind, the triumph over incredible adversity, and the healing power of love.At the age of thirty-one, John Nash, mathematical genius, suffered a devastating breakdown and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Yet after decades of leading a ghost-like existence, he was to re-emerge to win a Nobel Prize and world acclaim. A Beautiful Mind has inspired the Oscar-winning film directed by Ron Howard and featuring Russell Crowe in the lead role of John Nash.

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From one of our most admired playwrights, an ambitious, complicated and often laugh-out-loud religious debate (Toby Zinman, The Philadelphia Inquirer)Set in a time-bending, seriocomically imagined world between Heaven and Hell, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot is a philosophical meditation on the conflict between divine mercy and human free will that takes a close look at the eternal damnation of the Bible''s most notorious sinner. This latest work from the author of Our Lady of 121st Street shares many of the traits that have made Mr. Guirgis a playwright to reckon with in recent years: a fierce and questing mind that refuses to settle for glib answers, a gift for identifying with life''s losers and an unforced eloquence that finds the poetry in lowdown street talk. [Guirgis brings to the play] a stirring sense of Christian existential pain, which wonders at the paradoxes of faith (Ben Brantley, The New York Times).

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Only 23-years-old when he directed his extraordinary début feature Gummo, Harmony Korine has since continued to serve notice that he is the riskiest, most radical young talent in independent US film. This collection of three screenplays displays his defiantly unorthodox approach to film form, as well as the unclassifiable imaginative energy that drives all of his work.

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Johann Joachim Quantz's On Playing the Flute has long been recognized as one of the primary sources of information about eighteenth-century performance practice. In spite of its title, it is not simply a tutor for the flute, but a fully-fledged programme for training musicians of all types, with detailed information on intonation, ornamentation, dynamics, the 'duties' of the various accompanying performers, including the leader of the orchestra, and the principal forms and styles (French, Italian and German) of the time. Although Quantz is most often identified as the teacher of Frederick the Great, his musical roots were in Dresden, the most brilliant musical establishment in Germany; and his travels and studies in Italy, France and England gave him direct experience of most phases of European musical life in the 1720s and 30s. This reissue of the second edition provides a wonderfully complete and detailed picture of musical taste and performance practice in the 18th century, and includes a new introduction by Professor Reilly, drawing attention to recent research on Quantz. Whether you want to learn to play the flute and be taught by the teacher of Frederick the Great, or just to gain a first-hand insight into the history of classical music, On Playing the Flute is an essential and entertaining read.

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P. D. James's extraordinary memoir of her early life and time starting out as a novelist, as well as diaries recording her in old age.In this intriguing and very personal book, part diary, part memoir, P. D. James considers the twelve months of her life between her 77th and 78th birthdays, and looks back on her earlier life.With all her familiar skills as a writer she recalls what it was like to be a schoolgirl in the 1920s and 1930s in Cambridge, and then giving birth to her second daughter during the worst of the Doodlebug bombardment in London during the war. It follows her work, starting out as an administrator in the National Health Service, then on to the Home Office in the forensic and criminal justice departments. She later served as a Governor of the BBC, an influential member of the British Council, the Arts Council and the Society of Authors, and eventually entering the House of Lords.Along the way, this diary and personal memoir deals with her burgeoning reputation as a novelist, starting with Cover Her Face in 1962, and with the craft of the classical detective story. She also details the writing of one of her most intriguing and carefully researched books, A Certain Justice. This wonderful memoir will enthral aficionados of detective fiction, and will also appeal to anyone who lived through those turbulent years of the twentieth century. 'She has served up a feast of a book.' Penelope Lively'A wonderful read and as such will give pleasure to all P. D. James fans.' Antonia Fraser, Mail on Sunday'Like all the best diaries hers allows the reader to share in the small pleasures and domestic dramas of her days.' Sunday Telegraph'A wonderfully vivid evocation of a lower-middle-class childhood of oil lamps and gas mantles, water heated up on a coke boiler for the weekly bath, liberty bodices, prickly combinations, a father severely remote from his three children and a long-suffering mother.' Francis King, The Oldie P.D. James is the bestselling author of Death Comes to Pemberley and Children of Men, both of which have been adapted for film, with actors such as Michael Caine, Clive Owen and Jenna Coleman playing leading roles.

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I was supposed to be having the time of my life.When Esther Greenwood wins an internship on a New York fashion magazine in 1953, she is elated, believing she will finally realise her dream to become a writer. But in between the cocktail parties and piles of manuscripts, Esther's life begins to slide out of control. She finds herself spiralling into depression and eventually a suicide attempt, as she grapples with difficult relationships and a society which refuses to take women's aspirations seriously.The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath's only novel, was originally published in 1963 under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. The novel is partially based on Plath's own life and descent into mental illness, and has become a modern classic. The Bell Jar has been celebrated for its darkly funny and razor sharp portrait of 1950s society and has sold millions of copies worldwide.

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When Wislawa Szymborksa's View with a Grain of Sand, also translated by Stanislaw Baraczak and Clare Cavanagh, was published shortly after its author's award of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996, the Polish poet, hitherto all but unknown outside her own country, became an international name. More than 10,000 copies of the book have been sold in Britain alone. Yet it was not so much the fame of the prize, as the directness, vigour, wit and honesty with which Szymborska herself writes - qualities deftly captured by her translators - that brought this about. Transcending national and generational boundaries with her rare combination of moral wisdom and down-to-earth manner of speaking to us, she is unquestionably one of the great poetic spirits of the age. Poems New and Collected adds sixty-four new translations to the text of View with a Grain of Sand and includes, as preface, its author's Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

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Ted Hughes's Birthday Letters are addressed, with just two exceptions, to Sylvia Plath, the American poet to whom he was married. They were written over a period of more than twenty-five years, the first a few years after her suicide in 1963, and represent Ted Hughes's only account of his relationship with Plath and of the psychological drama that led both to the writing of her greatest poems and to her death. The book became an instant bestseller on its publication in 1998 and won the Forward Prize for Poetry in the same year. 'To read [Birthday Letters] is to experience the psychic equivalent of "the bends". It takes you down to levels of pressure where the undertruths of sadness and endurance leave you gasping.' Seamus Heaney 'Even if it were possible to set aside its biographical value . . . its linguistic, technical and imaginative feats would guarantee its future. Hughes is one of the most important poets of the century and this is his greatest book.' Andrew Motion

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William Golding's Lord of the Flies is a dystopian classic: 'exciting, relevant and thought-provoking' (Stephen King). When a group of schoolboys are stranded on a desert island, what could go wrong?'One of my favorite books - I read it every couple of years.' (Suzanne Collins, author of The Hunger Games)A plane crashes on a desert island. The only survivors are a group of schoolboys. By day, they discover fantastic wildlife and dazzling beaches, learning to survive; at night, they are haunted by nightmares of a primitive beast. Orphaned by society, it isn't long before their innocent childhood games devolve into a savage, murderous hunt ... 'Stands out mightily in my memory ... Such a strong statement about the human heart.' (Patricia Cornwell)'Terrifying and haunting.' (Kingsley Amis)'Beautifully written, tragic and provocative.' (E. M. Forster)ONE OF THE BBC'S ICONIC 'NOVELS THAT SHAPED OUR WORLD'What readers are saying:'Every real human being should read this ... This is what we are.''It's brilliant, it's captivating, it's thought provoking and brutal and for some, its truly terrifying.''It can be read and re-read many times, and every time something new will appear.''There is a reason why this is studied at school ... Excellent read.''This is one of the few books I've read that I keep on my Kindle to read again.''I revisit this every few years and it's always fresh and impressive ... One of the best books I've ever read.'

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First published in 1948, Structural Functions of Harmony is Schoenberg's last theoretical work and contains his ultimate thoughts on classical and romantic harmony. The opening chapters are a resume of the basic principles of the early Theory of Harmony; the subsequent chapters demonstrate the concept of 'monotonality', whereby all modulations to different keys within a movement are analysed not in relation to each other but in terms of the irrelationship to one central tonality (tonic) as the centre of all harmonic change. Schoenberg's music examples range from the entire development sections of classical symphonies to analyses of the harmonic progressions of Strauss, Debussy, Reger, and his own early music.

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This labyrinthine and extraordinary book, first published more than fifty years ago, was the outcome of Graves's vast reading and curious research into strange territories of folklore, mythology, religion and magic. Erudite and impassioned, it is a scholar-poet's quest for the meaning of European myths, a polemic about the relations between man and woman, and also an intensely personal document in which Graves explored the sources of his own inspiration and, as he believed, all true poetry.This new edition has been prepared by Grevel Lindop, who has written an illuminating introduction. The text of the book incorporates all Graves's final revisions, as well as his replies to two of the original reviewers, and a long essay in which he describes the months of inspiration in which The White Goddess was written.

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Orlando is Sally Potter's bold, unsentimental re-working of Virginia Woolf's classic novel in which an innocent aristocrat journeys through 400 years of English history - first as a man, then as a woman.The film has won more than twenty international awards and enjoyed considerable box-office success around the world.Addressing contemporary concerns about gender and identity, the screenplay is remarkably true to the spirit of Virginia Woolf. But it also skilfully adapts the original story to give it a striking, cinematic form. How Sally Potter has achieved this is described in the book's Introduction, which outlines the process by which Woolf's novel has been transformed into Potter's film.

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Often hailed as one of the best travel books ever written, Venice is neither a guide nor a history book, but a beautifully written immersion in Venetian life and character, set against the background of the city's past. Analysing the particular temperament of Venetians, as well as its waterways, its architecture, its bridges, its tourists, its curiosities, its smells, sounds, lights and colours, there is scarcely a corner of Venice that Jan Morris has not investigated and brought vividly to life. Jan Morris first visited the city of Venice as young James Morris, during World War II. As she writes in the introduction, 'it is Venice seen through a particular pair of eyes at a particular moment - young eyes at that, responsive above all to the stimuli of youth.' Venice is an impassioned work on this magnificent but often maddening city. Jan Morris's collection of travel writing and reportage spans over five decades and includes such titles as Sydney, Coronation Everest, Hong Kong, Spain and Manhattan '45. Since its first publication, Venice has appeared in many editions, won the W.H. Heinemann award and become an international bestseller. 'The best book about Venice ever written' Sunday Times 'No sensible visitor should visit the place without it . . . Venice stands alone as the essential introduction, and as a work of literature in its own right.' Observer

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Conversation in the Cathedral takes place in 1950s Peru during the dictatorship of General Ordia. Suspicion, paranoia and blackmail have become part of life. The conversation flows between two individuals, Santiago and Ambrosia, who talk of their tormented lives and of the degradation and frustration that has taken over their town.In this groundbreaking novel, Mario Vargas Llosa explores the mental and moral mechanisms that govern power and the people behind it. It is about identity, the role of a citizen and how a lack of personal freedom can forever scar a nation and its people.

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This is a collection of texts written between the fourth and fourteenth centuries by spiritual masters of the Orthodox Christian tradition. First published in Greek in 1782, the writings were translated into Slavonic and later into Russian.

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This comprehensive volume contains all Sylvia Plath's mature poetry written from 1956 up to her death in 1963. The poems are drawn from the only collection Plath published while alive, The Colossus, as well as from posthumous collections Ariel, Crossing the Water and Winter Trees.The text is preceded by an introduction by Ted Hughes and followed by notes and comments on individual poems. There is also an appendix containing fifty poems from Sylvia Plath's juvenilia.This collection was awarded the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for poetry.'For me, the most important literary event of 1981 has been the publication, eighteen years after her death, of Sylvia Plath's Collected Poems, confirming her as one of the most powerful and lavishly gifted poets of our time.' A. Alvarez in the Observer

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Professor Coghill was invited to prepare this annotated edition of Murder in the Cathedral by Eliot himself, and he approved his introduction. Coghill discusses Eliot's subject matter, and the play's importance in his oeuvre. Forty pages of notes elucidate textual difficulties, and include a valuable discussion of some wider issues. The references to the production of the play in the theatre are of great interest. There are three appendices on the historical context; on the metre of Everyman, which influenced the versification of Murder in the Cathedral; and on Tennyson's poetic drama Becket, which offers a striking contrast to Eliot's treatment of the subject.

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First published in 1954, Lord of the Flies is now recognised as a classic, one of the most celebrated and widely read of modern novels. This edition, which includes an introduction and notes by Ian Gregor and Mark Kinkead-Weekes, meets the demand for its use in schools and its prescription by numerous examining boards. In compiling the notes they have borne in mind the needs of younger readers not only in this country but overseas.

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An abandoned plane. A dead body. A small town threatening to explode.'A searing, thunderous, heartbreaking thriller. Wiley Cash has talent to burn.' Chris WhitakerWinston did not hear it so much as feel it as it passed over their house and into the trees across the waterway.The sheriff struggling for re-election and haunted by his past.The mystery plane which crash-lands on his island.The daughter returning home to hide from her troubles.The FBI pilot sent in to help.As the mystery of the abandoned plane and the dead body stokes long-simmering racial tensions, a moment of reckoning draws ever closer for the town of Oak Island. When Ghosts Come Home is the thrilling new page-turner from prize-winning novelist Wiley Cash.'An unputdownable knock-out.' Lauren Wilkinson, author of American Spy

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"My name is Karim Amir, and I am an Englishman born and bred, almost. . ."Meet the hero of Hanif Kureishi's seminal debut novel, as he dreams of escape from suburban South London, desperate to experience the forbidden fruits which the 1970s seem to offer. When the unlikely opportunity of a life in the theatre announced itself, Karim starts to win the sort of attention he has been craving - albeit with some raucous results.

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'It's time,' I say. 'For ... It. Me. You. Us. The bench. The zoo. The question. Why?'The only thing that Elvis Crampton Lucas knows about where he's from is that he was found on the bench at a zoo. And that his now father took him home in a Stetson hat, and named him after the first three vinyl he picked off his shelf. But now, on his twelfth 'discovery day', it's time for Elvis to find out who left him at the zoo, and why?On an epic adventure that takes Elvis to an island off the coast of Norway, he will finally discover the truth about his past...

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In Climbing Days, Dan Richards is on the trail of his great-great-aunt, Dorothy Pilley, a prominent and pioneering mountaineer of the early twentieth century. For years, Dorothy and her husband, I. A. Richards, remained a mystery to Dan, but the chance discovery of her 1935 memoir leads him on a journey. Perhaps, in the mountains, he can meet them halfway? Climbing Days is a beautiful portrait of a trailblazing woman, previously lost to history, but also a book about that eternal question: why do people climb mountains?

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'Glorious.' Observer 'Wildly imaginative.' Independent'Intoxicating.' Financial TimesOn the windswept front of Morecambe Bay, Cy Parks spends his childhood years first in a guest house for consumptives run by his mother and then as apprentice to alcoholic tattoo-artist Eliot Riley. Thirsty for new experiences, he departs for America and finds himself in the riotous world of the Coney Island boardwalk, where he sets up his own business as 'The Electric Michelangelo'. In this carnival environment of roller-coasters and freak-shows, Cy becomes enamoured with Grace, a mysterious immigrant and circus performer who commissions him to cover her entire body in tattooed eyes.Hugely atmospheric, exotic and familiar, The Electric Michelangelo is a love story and an exquisitely rendered portrait of seaside resorts on opposite sides of the Atlantic by one of the most uniquely talented novelists of her generation.

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Slowly I learnt the ways of humans: how to ruin, how to hate, how to debase, how to humiliate. And at the feet of my master I learnt the highest of human skills, the skill no other creature owns: I finally learnt how to lie.Childlike in his innocence but grotesque in form, Frankenstein's bewildered creature is cast out into a hostile universe by his horror-struck maker. Meeting with cruelty wherever he goes, the friendless Creature, increasingly desperate and vengeful, determines to track down his creator and strike a terrifying deal.Urgent concerns of scientific responsibility, parental neglect, cognitive development and the nature of good and evil are embedded within this thrilling and deeply disturbing classic gothic tale.Frankenstein, based on the novel by Mary Shelley, premiered at the National Theatre, London, in February 2011.

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This selection, which was made by Eliot himself, is intended as an introduction to the main body of his poetry prior to Four Quartets, which is available separately in Faber Paperbacks. The selection includes the whole of The Waste Land.

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In this series, a contemporary poet selects and introduces a poet of the past. By their choice of poems and by the personal and critical reactions they express in their prefaces, the editors offer insights into their own work as well as providing an accessible and passionate introduction to the most important poets in our literature.Robert Lowell (1917-77) was born in Boston. Life Studies, published in 1959, was a watershed in American poetry, initiating an autobiographical project that became the dominating feature of his work and shaped poetry on both sides of the Atlantic. He was the renowned and controversial author of many books of poetry, including For the Union Dead (1964) and Day by Day (1977). Faber published his Collected Poems in 2003.

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These poems report on worlds both robust and delicate, from boisterous pub-bluff to the oxygen bubble of an exquisite underwater spider. Whether situated in the quiet lanes of his native Co Cork or amid the bustle of his adopted London, Riordan's poems exist between many states, poised at once in the grip of both activity and stillness, concerned with speaking and listening to what he hauntingly describes as 'the unwonted quiet'. There are tributes to the departed and the living, the befriended and the estranged; there are also conversations with poets, in memory and in translation, from the Spanish and from the Irish. The collection concludes with 'The Pilgrim' - that hovers eerily 'in patrol of the edges', wherever they may be located. But just as these poems can be sage, they are also mischievous, fun-loving, gregarious creatures who like nothing better than to sing or to joke at your ear. The Water Stealer is a book full of invention and delight, whose hypnotic stories remind us of the variousness and the enchantment of the world.

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In 1964, Mary Whitehouse launched a campaign to fight what she called the 'propaganda of disbelief, doubt and dirt' being poured into homes through the nation's radio and television sets. Whitehouse, senior mistress at a Shropshire secondary school, became the unlikely figurehead of a mass movement for censorship: the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association, now Mediawatch-uk.For almost forty years, she kept up the fight against the programme makers, politicians, pop stars and playwrights who she felt were dragging British culture into a sewer of blasphemy and obscenity. From Doctor Who ('Teatime brutality for tots') to Dennis Potter (whose mother sued her for libel and won) to the Beatles - whose Magical Mystery Tour escaped her intervention by the skin of its psychedelic teeth - the list of Mary Whitehouse's targets will read to some like a nostalgic roll of honour.Caricatured while she lived as a figure of middle-brow reaction, Mary Whitehouse was held in contempt by the country's intellectual elite. But were some of the dangers she warned of more real than they imagined? Ben Thompson's selection of material from her extraordinary archive shows Mary Whitehouse's legacy in a startling new light. From her exquisitely testy exchanges with successive BBC Directors General, to the anguished screeds penned by her television and radio vigilantes, these letters reveal a complex and combative individual, whose anxieties about culture and morality are often eerily relevant to the age of the internet. 'A fantastic read . . . I can't recommend it highly enough.' Lauren Laverne, BBC Radio 6 Music

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WINNER OF THE 2016 INTERNATIONAL DUBLIN LITERARY AWARDWINNER OF THE FOLIO PRIZE 2015For eight-year-old Ajay and his older brother Birju, life in Dehli in the late 1970s follows a comfortable, predictable routine: bathing on the roof, queuing for milk, playing cricket in the street. Yet, everything changes when their father finds a job in America - a land of carpets and elevators, swimsuits and hot water on tap. Life is exciting for the two brothers as they adjust to prosperity, girls and 24-hour TV, until one hot, sultry day when everything falls apart. Darkly comic, Family Life is a story of a boy torn between duty and survival amid the ruins of everything he once knew.

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'Meet Luca Turin, a renegade scientist and perfume critic with an extraordinary sense of smell.' NewsdayFunny, irreverent and passionate, The Secret of Scent opens the lid on two worlds - the glamorous and highly lucrative realm of the perfume makers, and the equally rivalrous domain of smell science.Smell is our forgotten sense. Long neglected by science in favour of more prestigious areas of research, it's also barely understood in general life. At the core of our sense of smell lies an enigma: why do things smell the way they do? How is smell written into the molecules? This book is the story of the quest to solve this puzzle. Luca Turin has been described in The Economist as 'a man with a powerful nose and a bizarre obsession with perfume.' Starting with a tour of the great perfumes and their gifted makers, he shows how few people have an idea of what perfume is or how it is made, let alone how smell works and what part it plays in other pleasures like food. But not everyone has ignored this powerful sense. A small band of mavericks has been trying to crack the code of smell for seventy years. Building on their work, Turin thinks he has succeeded. And like all good mysteries, the solution was all the while hidden in plain sight - in this case, right under our noses.

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40th anniversary edition of the bestselling modern classic: Milan Kundera's iconic novel of love and politics in communist Czechoslovakia.'Shamelessly clever ... Exhilaratingly subversive and funny.' Independent'A modern classic ... As relevant now as when it was first published. ' John BanvilleA young woman is in love with a successful surgeon: a man torn between his love for her and his womanising. His mistress, a free-spirited artist, lives her life as a series of betrayals, while her other lover stands to lose everything because of his noble qualities. In a world where lives are shaped by choices and events, and everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance and weight - and we feel 'the unbearable lightness of being'.Kundera's classic provoked a whole generation, encompassing passion and philosophy, body and soul, infidelity and ideas, the Prague Spring and modern America, political acts and private desires, comedy and tragedy - in fact, all of human existence.What readers are saying:'Some books change your mind, some change your heart, the very best change your whole world ... A mighty piece of work, that will shape your life forever.''One of the best books I've ever read ... A book about love and life, full of surprises. Beautiful.''This book is going to change your life ... It definitely leaves you with a hangover after you're done reading.''Kundera writes about love as if in a trance so the beauty of it is enchanting and dreamy ... Will stay with you.'

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Set in the mysterious landscape of the bogs of rural Ireland, Carr's lyrical and timeless play tells the story of Hester Swane, an Irish traveller with a deep and unearthly connection to her land. Tormented by the memory of a mother who deserted her, Hester is once again betrayed, this time by the father of her child, the man she loves. On the brink of despair, she embarks on a terrible journey of vengeance as the secrets of her tangled history are revealed.'A piece of poetic realism steeped in the past . . . Carr has an extraordinary ability to move between the mythic and the real.' Guardian'A great play . . . a great work of poetry.' IndependentBy the Bog of Cats premiered at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in 1998. It was revived at Wyndham's Theatre, London, in November 2004.

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One night, when I am old, sick, right out of semen, and don't need things to get any worse, I hear the noises growing louder. I am sure they are making love in Zenab's bedroom which is next to mine.Waldo, a fÃted filmmaker, is confined by old age and ill health to his London apartment. Frail and frustrated, he is cared for by his lovely younger wife, Zee. But when he suspects that Zee is beginning an affair with Eddie, 'more than an acquaintance and less than a friend for over thirty years,' Waldo is pressed to action: determined to expose the couple, he sets himself first to prove his suspicions correct - and then to enact his revenge.Written with characteristic black humour and with an acute eye for detail, Kureishi's eagerly awaited novella will have his readers dazzled once again by a brilliant mind at work.

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In this series, a contemporary poet selects and introduces a poet of the past. By their choice of poems and by the personal and critical reactions they express in their prefaces, the editors offer insights into their own work as well as providing an accessible and passionate introduction to the most important poets in our literature.

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AS SEEN ON ITVXOVER HALF A MILLION COPIES OF APPLE TREE YARD SOLD'The perfect thriller.' Stylist'Scarily plausible . . . desperately moving.' Guardian'Gripping.' Good HousekeepingThe novel from Sunday Times bestselling author Platform Seven at 4am: Peterborough Railway Station is deserted. The man crossing the covered walkway on this freezing November morning is confident he's alone. As he sits on the metal bench at the far end of the platform it is clear his choice is strategic - he's as far away from the night staff as he can get.What the man doesn't realise is that he has company. Lisa Evans knows what he has decided. She knows what he is about to do as she tries and fails to stop him walking to the platform edge.Two deaths on Platform Seven. Two fatalities in eighteen months - surely they're connected?No one is more desperate to understand what connects them than Lisa Evans herself. After all, she was the first of the two to die . . .Readers are gripped by Platform Seven:***** 'Had me hooked from the start - a real page turner!'***** 'Brilliant . . . punches you straight in heart.'***** 'Amazing . . . A thriller with a difference!'***** 'The best book I have read in along while'

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Almond Brown has no friends in real life . . . but 3.5 million followers online. A heart-felt, whip-smart deep dive into what it would really be like to be internet famous at 17: a cautionary tale for our time from a writer who has grown up with social media.Almond is forced into the spotlight when she was just a perfectly filtered bump: her mum has been documenting their family through social media since before she was born. And her family enjoy all the rewards that come from that level of influence. Only, it's not the life Almond would have chosen for herself, and being on a platform all the time has made her anxious and insecure. When the darkest side of the internet begins to haunt her, Almond feels like she's going to lose everything . . . If only she could see that she has a real-life, too, full of friends and family who love her, and that it could save her.

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Writing with refreshing passion, and with her own personal story at its heart, Alice Farnham sets out to explore what it means to be a conductor in modern times. Uniquely, she draws on a wealth of insights from fellow conductors, each with their own perspectives and specialisms - from luminaries such as Antonio Pappano and Jane Glover, to a new generation making their own distinctive mark on the profession.This is not a guide on how to conduct: for music lovers and music makers, not least aspiring conductors, it's a frank, fascinating portrait of what conducting really entails today. Beyond that, it's a book about leadership, full of timely sentiment on who gets to lead, and what it takes to unite and inspire people.'A book that will fascinate and enthral anyone interested in music. Alice Farnham's enchanting blend of insight, experience, musical understanding, sparkling good sense and intelligence brings alive and demystifies what it is to be a conductor.'Stephen Fry

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'Mesmerising.' The Herald, Best Books to read this summer'A glorious novel, as lyrical as it is suspenseful - breathless, tense, and shimmering.' STEPH CHA'My daddy always told me, if it looks too good to be true - then it probably is.'Bart, Teddy and Cole have been best friends since childhood. Having founded their own small-town construction company, they yearn to build a legacy, something to leave behind to their families. So when Gretchen Connors, a mysterious millionaire lawyer from California, approaches them with a stunning, almost formidable project in the mountains above their town, the three friends convince themselves it's the job which will secure their future.But what is Gretchen hiding from them? And why does the build have to be complete by Christmas, a near-impossible deadline? With the lines between ambition and greed more slippery and dangerous than the three friends ever imagined, how far will they push themselves and what will be the cost of their dream?From the author of the international bestseller Shotgun Lovesongs, Godspeed is an unforgettable tale of family, friendship and temptation.

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'The Arctic' in Don Paterson's powerful new collection is the name of a bar frequented by the survivors of several kinds of apocalypse. The poems gathered here are as various as the clientele: elegies for the poet's musician father; tales of the love lives of gods and the childhoods of psychopaths; troubled encounters between men and women; odes to movies and the male anatomy; studies of art and ambition, politics and parenthood. Other voices enter the fray in renderings of Cavafy, Montale and the Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral. And in the fourth part of Paterson's ongoing poem 'The Alexandrian Library', the poet-as-amateur scientist - from a weather station at the top of Ben Nevis to the cellar of The Arctic - bears witness to the imminence of man-made extinction. By turns urgent, railing and tender, these are poems of and for our times, by one of our most celebrated and formally adventurous writers.

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