Search results for ""Faber Faber""
Faber & Faber New Collected Poems
'I first read a W. S. Graham poem in 1949. It sent a shiver down my spine. Forty-five years later nothing has changed. His song is unique and his work an inspiration.' Harold Pinter. From his first publications in the early 1940s, to his final works of the late 1970s, W. S. Graham has given us a poetry of intense power and inquisitive vision - a body of work regarded by many as among the best Romantic poetry of the twentieth century. This New Collected Poems, edited by poet and Graham-scholar Matthew Francis and with a foreword by Douglas Dunn, offers the broadest picture yet of Graham's work.
£18.00
Faber & Faber The Faber Pocket Guide to Ballet
The essential, easy-to-use classical ballet guide - spanning nearly two centuries of classical dance - with entries for more than eighty works from ballet companies around the world, from Giselle and Swan Lake to Cinderella and Steptext. This new edition has been revised to include new ballets by Wayne McGregor, Alexei Ratmansky and Christopher Wheeldon alongside classics by Tchaikovsky, Diaghilev and Balanchine.Features include:- plot summaries- an analysis of each ballet's principal themes- useful background and historical information- a unique, behind-the-scenes, performer's-eye viewDip in at random or trace the development of dance from cover to cover. Written by former Royal Ballet principal Deborah Bull and leading dance critic Luke Jennings, this ever popular Faber Pocket guide is a must for all ballet-goers - regulars and first-timers alike.
£5.21
Faber & Faber Life Studies
Life Studies was first published in 1959.'In Life Studies the pathos of the local colour of the past - of the lives and deaths of his father and mother and grandfather and uncle, crammed full of their own varied and placid absurdity - is the background that sets off the desperate knife-edged absurdity of the jailed conscientious objector among gangsters and Jehovah's witnesses, the private citizen returning to his baby, older now, from the mental hospital. He sees things as being part of history; if you say about his poor detailedly eccentric, trust-fund Lowells: 'but they weren't,' he can answer: 'They are now.'' Randall Jarrell
£12.99
Faber & Faber Hundred Years War Vol 2: Trial By Fire
In the second volume of his celebrated history of the Hundred Years War, Jonathan Sumption examines the middle years of the fourteenth century and the succession of crises that threatened French affairs of state, including defeat at Poitiers and the capture of the king.
£27.00
Faber & Faber Trieste
Jan Morris (then James) first visited Trieste as a soldier at the end of the Second World War. Since then, the city has come to represent her own life, with all its hopes, disillusionments, loves and memories. Here, her thoughts on a host of subjects - ships, cities, cats, sex, nationalism, Jewishness, civility and kindness - are inspired by the presence of Trieste, and recorded in or between the lines of this book.Evoking the whole of its modern history, from its explosive growth to wealth and fame under the Habsburgs, through the years of Fascist rule to the miserable years of the Cold War, when rivalries among the great powers prevented its creation as a free city under United Nations auspices, Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere is neither a history nor a travel book; like the place, it is one of a kind. Jan Morris's collection of travel writing and reportage spans over five decades and includes such titles as Venice, Coronation Everest, Hong Kong, Spain, Manhattan '45, A Writer's World and the Pax Britannica Trilogy. Hav, her novel, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Arthur C. Clarke Award.
£10.99
Faber & Faber Beowulf
Composed towards the end of the first millennium, the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf is one of the great Northern epics and a classic of European literature. In his new translation, Seamus Heaney has produced a work which is both true, line by line, to the original poem, and an expression, in its language and music, of something fundamental to his own creative gift.The poem is about encountering the monstrous, defeating it, and then having to live on, physically and psychically exposed, in that exhausted aftermath. It is not hard to draw parallels between this story and the history of the twentieth century, nor can Heaney's Beowulf fail to be read partly in the light of his Northern Irish upbringing. But it also transcends such considerations, telling us psychological and spiritual truths that are permanent and liberating.
£12.99
Faber & Faber Reservoir Dogs
When Reservoir Dogs burst upon the screen in 1992, it announced the arrival of one of the most charismatic and audacious voices in cinema today.Reservoir Dogs is the story of a heist gone wrong, and how the group of outlaws concerned are subsequently undone in the course of their search for the enemy within.Quentin Tarantino uses words like bullets and writes with a propulsive energy that is compellingly readable. As always with Tarantino, the style of the storytelling is restlessly inventive, showcasing not only his fine ear for frank and foul-mouthed dialogue but also his grasp of formal structure, comparable to that of the smartest crime novelists.
£9.99
Faber & Faber The Hunter
The hunter arrives in an isolated community in the Tasmanian wilderness with a single purpose in mind: to find the last thylacine, the tiger of fable, fear and legend. The man is in the employ of the mysterious 'Company', but his sinister purpose is never revealed and as his relationship with a grieving mother and her two children becomes more ambiguous, the hunt becomes his own. Leigh's Tasmania is a place where the wilderness can still claim lives; where the connection between people and the land is at best uneasy and cannot be trusted. In prose of exceptional clarity and elegance, Julia Leigh creates an unforgettable picture of a man obsessed by an almost mythical animal in a damp dangerous landscape. The Hunter is the work of a compelling storyteller and a truly remarkable literary stylist.
£8.99
Faber & Faber Report to Greco
Kazantzakis's autobiographical novel Report to Greco was one of the last things he wrote before he died. It paints a vivid picture of his childhood in Crete, still occupied by the Turks, and then steadily grows into a spiritual quest that takes him to Italy, Jerusalem, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Russia and the Caucasus, and finally back to Crete again. At different times Nietzshe, Bergson, Buddha, Homer and Christ dominate as his spiritual masters.
£9.99
Faber & Faber Farewell Waltz
Klima, a celebrated jazz trumpeter, receives a phone call announcing that a young nurse with whom he spent a brief night at a fertility spa is pregnant. She has decided he is the father.And so begins a comedy which, during five madcap days, unfolds with ever-increasing speed. Klima's beautiful, jealous wife, the nurse's equally jealous boyfriend, a fanatical gynaecologist, a rich American, at once Don Juan and saint, and an elderly political prisoner who, just before his emigration, is holding a farewell party at the spa are all drawn into this black comedy, as in A Midsummer Night's Dream.As usual, Milan Kundera poses serious questions with a blasphemous lightness which makes us understand that the modern world has taken away our right to tragedy.
£9.99
Faber & Faber Amy's View
It is 1979. Esme Allen is a well-known West End actress at just the moment when the West End is ceasing to offer actors a regular way of life. The visit of her young daughter, Amy, with a new boyfriend sets in train a series of events which only find their shape eighteen years later. A generational play about the long term struggle between a strong mother and her loving daughter, Amy's View mixes love, death and the theatre in a way which is both heady and original.
£12.57
Faber & Faber David Hare Plays 1: Slag; Teeth 'n' Smiles; Knuckle; Licking Hitler; Plenty
This first volume of David Hare's plays contains his work from the 1970s, including his landmark play of that decade, Plenty, charting the development of 'one of the great post-war British playwrights' (Independent on Sunday).The volume also includes the plays Slag, Teeth 'n' Smiles, Knuckle and Licking Hitler, and is introduced by the author.
£17.09
Faber & Faber The Philokalia Vol 3
The Philokalia is a collection of texts on prayer and the spiritual life, written between the fourth and fifteenth centuries by spiritual masters of the Orthodox Christian tradition. First published in Greek in 1782, translated into Slavonic and later into Russian, The Philokalia has had a decisive influence upon the Orthodox Church during the last two centuries, and it continues to be read more and more widely.The Philokalia is devoted to themes of universal significance: how we may develop our inner powers and awake from illusion; how we may overcome fragmentation and achieve wholeness; how we may attain contemplative stillness and union with God.This is the first complete translation into English. It is made from the original Greek, and is to be completed in five volumes. The third volume contains works dating from the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Peter of Damaskos, the chief author included, offers a clear and comprehensive survey of the spiritual way, quoting abundantly from earlier writers. Symeon Metaphratis, in his paraphrase of Makarios, stresses the central place of the Holy Spirit. As in the first two volumes, the editors have provided introductory notes to each of the writers, a glossary of key terms, and a detailed index.
£18.00
Faber & Faber Terrors and Experts
In the style of his earlier books, "On Kissing, Tickling and Being Bored" and "On Flirtation", the author discusses ways in which we may be terrorized by experts, and the idea of expertise itself. He challenges the conventional idea of the "self" as something to be known, and sets out to show how self-knowledge is the problem rather than the solution. By examining our wish to believe things - and people (including psychoanalysts) - the book offers a revision of psychoanalysis itself. For to take psychoanalysis seriously, Phillips suggests, is to be unable to take gurus seriously.
£10.99
Faber & Faber The Book of Laughter and Forgetting: 'A masterpiece' (Salman Rushdie)
'A masterpiece' (Salman Rushdie) by the author of modern classic The Unbearable Lightness of Being.'[It] calls itself a novel, although it is part fairy tale, part literary criticism, part political tract, part musicology, and part autobiography. It can call itself whatever it wants to, because the whole is genius.' New York TimesWhat readers are saying:'Kundera embrace politics, sex, philosophy and history, with a seen-it-all cynicism that nevertheless manages to be fascinating and even uplifting ... It was addictive and fun, sexy and cool, easy to read, and made me feel brighter, switched on, and more alive.''You must read this novel. Can't tell you about it, you just have to do it yourself. Its bonkers-brilliant! Phantasmagoric originality like this comes very seldom in a reader's so-sweet life.''Kundera's unique writing style comes as a revelation ... This holds a special place in my reading history as the one book that I instantly began re-reading as soon as I finished it.''Absolutely enchanted me. It's such an unique novel. It speaks of so many things, from communism and regimes to love and art. For me personally, it is a perfect book.''I am not going to spoil the story here, but while the story is not supernatural in any way, it takes on a fantastical flavor, full of mysteries and strange emotions ... It is obvious that Kundera has thought a lot about life, about the meaning of life, and lets the reader in on his secrets.''Such a unique writer, Kundera! What a way he has to shine the brightest light on the deepest corners of human psyche.'
£9.99
Faber & Faber Arcadia
In a large country house in Derbyshire in April 1809 sits Lady Thomasina Coverly, aged thirteen, and her tutor, Septimus Hodge. Through the window may be seen some of the '500 acres inclusive of lake' where Capability Brown's idealized landscape is about to give way to the 'picturesque' Gothic style: 'everything but vampires', as the garden historian Hannah Jarvis remarks to Bernard Nightingale when they stand in the same room 180 years later.Bernard has arrived to uncover the scandal which is said to have taken place when Lord Byron stayed at Sidley Park.Tom Stoppard's absorbing play takes us back and forth between the centuries and explores the nature of truth and time, the difference between the Classical and the Romantic temperament, and the disruptive influence of sex on our orbits in life - 'the attraction', as Hannah says, 'which Newton left out'.
£10.99
Faber & Faber Testaments Betrayed
Kundera's essay has been written like a novel. In the course of nine separate sections, the same characters meet and cross paths with each other. Stravinsky and Kafka with their odd friends Ansermet and Brod; Hemingway with his biographer; Janácek with his little nation; and Rabelais with his heirs - the great novelists.In the light of their wisdom this book examines some of the great situations of our time. The moral trial of the twentieth century's art, from Celine to Mayakovsky; the passage of time which blurs the boundaries between the 'I' of the present day and the 'I' of the past; modesty as an essential concept in an age based on the individual and indiscretion which, as it becomes the habit and the norm, heralds the twilight of individualism; the testaments, the betrayed testaments - of Europe, of art, of the art of the novel and of artists.
£10.99
Faber & Faber On Kissing, Tickling and Being Bored
The author is committed to psychoanalysis as part of a wider cultural conversation, and this unique collection of essays on a wide range of relatively unexplored subjects combines literary and philosophical commentary with vivid clinical vignettes.'Like Chekhov, Phillips writes as well as he doctors, and his fascination with the subtleties of human behaviour makes him a good storyteller.He has a welcome openness to the essential strangeness of every person; this alone is reason enough to read him.' Jane Mendelsohn, Guardian
£9.99
Faber & Faber Serious Concerns
Wendy Cope's first book of poems and parodies, Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis, went straight into the bestseller lists. Its successor, Serious Concerns has proved even more popular, addressing such topics as 'Bloody Men', 'Men and Their Boring Arguments', 'Two Cures for Love', 'Kindness to Animals' and 'Tumps' (Typically Useless Male Poets).
£10.99
Faber & Faber Goodfellas
'As far back as I can remember, I've always wanted to be a gangster.'Henry Hill grows up in the 1950s, in a Brooklyn neighbourhood where Italian-American gangsters walk tall in the streets, commanding the respect of their peers. Young Henry dreams that one day he too might be a professional 'wiseguy' - a 'goodfella'. His wishes come true with remarkable speed once he teams up with renowned hoodlum Jimmy Conway and his alarmingly psychotic pal Tommy DeVito. Henry embarks on an everyday life of crime which takes him from rags to gaudy riches, in and out of the federal penitentiary and under the unwelcome spotlight of the FBI. As the 1970s turn sour Henry finds himself at the sharp end of the cocaine trade, increasingly adrift from his extended mobster 'family' and forced to make a tough decision about his future . . . The film that re-established Martin Scorsese's eminence among American directors after years of professional difficulties, GoodFellas is a tour de force which lays bare the crude and venal motives which drive a happy band of thieves and murderers.
£10.99
Faber & Faber Elegies
Winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year in 1985, these poems were written after the death of Douglas Dunn's first wife in March 1981.
£12.99
Faber & Faber Selected Poems 1908-1969
This selection provides an excellent introduction to Ezra Pound's poetry for the general reader, and for the student of contemporary literature. It takes the place of the pioneer edition edited by T. S. Eliot which was published in 1928. A representative group of early poems is included; Hugh Selwyn Mauberley, Cathay and Homage to Sextus Propertius are printed complete; and there is a selection from the Cantos up to and including Drafts & Fragments (1969).
£15.29
Faber & Faber Translations
The action takes place in late August 1833 at a hedge-school in the townland of Baile Beag, an Irish-speaking community in County Donegal. In a nearby field camps a recently arrived detachment of the Royal Engineers, making the first Ordnance Survey. For the purposes of cartography, the local Gaelic place names have to be recorded and rendered into English. In examining the effects of this operation on the lives of a small group, Brian Friel skilfully reveals the far-reaching personal and cultural effects of an action which is at first sight purely administrative.
£10.99
Faber & Faber Demon Copperhead: Winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction
**A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER**WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTIONTWICE WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZESHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAMES TAIT BLACK PRIZE FOR FICTIONTHE MULTI-MILLION COPY SELLING AUTHORBOOK AT BEDTIME ON BBC RADIO 4AN OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK'Without a doubt the best book I'll read this year.' KATE ATKINSON'It's EPIC. Righteously angry, DEEPLY moving and exquisitely written.' MARIAN KEYES'Daring, entertaining and highly readable.' The Times'Electrifying.' Daily Mail'A blaze of a book.' RACHEL JOYCE'A masterclass.' RICHARD POWERS'Masterful.' Pulitzer Prize'Powerful.' Guardian'A work of genius.' KATE MOSSE____________Demon Copperhead is a once-in-a-generation novel that breaks and mends your heart in the way only the best fiction can.Demon's story begins with his traumatic birth to a single mother in a single-wide trailer, looking 'like a little blue prizefighter.' For the life ahead of him he would need all of that fighting spirit, along with buckets of charm, a quick wit, and some unexpected talents, legal and otherwise.In the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, poverty isn't an idea, it's as natural as the grass grows. For a generation growing up in this world, at the heart of the modern opioid crisis, addiction isn't an abstraction, it's neighbours, parents, and friends. 'Family' could mean love, or reluctant foster care. For Demon, born on the wrong side of luck, the affection and safety he craves is as remote as the ocean he dreams of seeing one day. The wonder is in how far he's willing to travel to try and get there.Suffused with truth, anger and compassion, Demon Copperhead is an epic tale of love, loss and everything in between.'Legit about to get an 'I'd rather be reading Demon Copperhead' sticker for my Nissan Murano.' ROB DELANEY____________What readers are saying:***** 'An amazing, beautifully written story I cannot wait to recommend to everyone I know.' ***** 'Powerful and brilliant. To immerse yourself in a Kingsolver novel is to put yourself in the hands of a master.' ***** 'A must read and heart-opening book.' ***** 'Raw, angry, starkly beautiful. . . Genuinely one of the best books I've ever read.'***** 'Amazingly complex. . . [Kingsolver] is, by far, one of the greatest living authors'
£9.99
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 MacdonaldI tore the arse of my pyjamas one morning, about a year before he died, and my father sewed it up perfect in a few minutes, just like that. I was looking at them this morning actually, his line of white stitches. It's beautiful really. They've held.'Beautiful, strange and completely compelling.' Olivia Laing'I 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.
£14.38
Faber & Faber The Country of Others
'A panoramic, ambitious tale.' The Times'Exceptional.' Salman Rushdie'Powerful.' Christine Mangan'Captivating.' Elle1944. After the Liberation, Mathilde leaves France to join her husband in Morocco. But life here is unrecognisable to this brave and passionate young woman. Her life is now that of a farmer's wife - with all the sacrifices and vexations that brings. Suffocated by the heat, by her loneliness on the farm and by the mistrust she inspires as a foreigner, Mathilde grows increasingly restless. As Morocco's struggle for independence intensifies, Mathilde and her husband find themselves caught in the crossfire.From the internationally bestselling author, The Country of Others is perfect for fans of Elena Ferrante, Tracy Chevalier, and Maggie O'Farrell.
£14.99
Faber & Faber Sojourn
'Where most of us can barely trace our own footprints in the mass of moments that are the stuff of experience, numerous and storyless as grains of sand on a beach, Chaudhuri delves in masterfully to lift out arcs, moods, treasures.'James Meek'A mysterious, subtle, haunting novel.'Chris PowerAn unnamed man arrives in Berlin as a visiting professor. It is a place fused with Western history and cultural fracture lines. He moves along its streets and pavements; through its department stores, museums and restaurants. He befriends Faqrul, an enigmatic exiled poet, and Birgit, a woman with whom he shares the vagaries of attraction. He tries to understand his white-haired cleaner. Berlin is a riddle-he becomes lost not only in the city but in its legacy.Sealed off in his own solitude, and as his visiting professorship passes, the narrator awaits transformation and meaning. Ultimately, he starts to understand that the less sure he becomes of his place in the moment, the more he knows his way.'Chaudhuri has already proved that he can write better than just about anybody of his generation.' Jonathan Coe
£14.99
Faber & Faber Pass Over
A lamppost. Night. Two friends are passing time. Stuck. Waiting for change.Inspired by Waiting for Godot and the Exodus, Antoinette Nwandu fuses poetry, humour and humanity in a rare and politically charged new play which exposes the experiences of young men in a world that refuses to see them.Pass Over by Antoinette Nwandu received its UK premiere at the Kiln Theatre, London, in February 2020.
£9.99
Faber & Faber The Night Always Comes
'Pacey and visceral.' Sunday Times'Imbued with the noirish urgency of a page-turning thriller.' Irish Times'A tear-struck revelation.' MEGAN ABBOTTBetween looking after her brother, working two low-paid jobs, and trying to take part-time college classes, Lynette is dangerously tired. Every penny she's earned for years, she's put into savings, trying to scrape together enough to take out a mortgage on the house she rents with her mother. Finally becoming a homeowner in their rapidly gentrifying Portland neighbourhood could offer Lynette the kind of freedoms she's never had. But, when the plan is derailed, Lynette must embark on a desperate odyssey of hope and anguish.Written with all Willy Vlautin's characteristic and heart-wrenching empathy, The Night Always Comes holds up a mirror to a society which leaves too many people only a step away from falling between the cracks.What readers are saying:'Amazing . . . Vlautin hit the nail on the head with this. I could not stop thinking about the characters and where the story would take them.''WOW. This book hit me hard . . . I was on the edge of my seat.''The book pulls you into the story and you can't wait to find out what happens next.''Fabulous . . . part suspenseful action and part deep character study.
£12.99
Faber & Faber Original Sin
THE NINTH NOVEL IN THE MULTIMILLION-COPY BESTSELLING ADAM DALGLIESH SERIES FROM THE 'QUEEN OF ENGLISH CRIME' (Guardian) 'Outstanding . . . A book to escape into, delighting in the sense that you are in safe hands, no matter how unsafe the subject.' Observer'Classic P. D. James: rich, delicious and satisfying.' Evening Standard 'Crime novel perfection!' 5* reader reviewPERFECT FOR FANS OF VAL MCDERMID, RUTH RENDELL AND ELLY GRIFFITHS__________________________________________________________________________________Where murder is concerned, fiction cannot compete with real life.The Peverell Press is losing money. The two-hundred-year-old independent publisher is still housed in its dramatic mock-Venetian palace on the Thames, but its ruthless new director, Gerard Etienne, wants to move to cheaper offices as part of his plan to save the company. Before he can push through any ambitious changes, though, he is found murdered, his body bizarrely desecrated.Commander Adam Dalgliesh soon finds that the director had a host of dangerous enemies: a discarded mistress, a neglected and humiliated author, rebellious colleagues, disgruntled staff. But did any of them hate Gerard enough to kill him?__________________________________________________________________________________'Puts the work of most of her rivals to shame.' Sunday Times 'Each of the complex, finely drawn characters has an excellent motive for murder, and as death extends its tentacles through the marble building, no one connected with the Peverell press seems remotely safe or innocent.' The Times'Probably the best of the Dalgliesh series so far. Unputdownable.' 5* reader review**Now a major Channel 5 series**__________________________________________________________________________________READERS LOVE THE ADAM DALGLEISH SERIES:'If you are not already an Adam Dalgliesh fan, I urge you to become one . . . James can describe a scene or delineate a character with precision and depth, like no other writer I have read.' 5* reader review'This series is now as thrilling and gripping as Agatha Christie's great mysteries . . . A wonderful treat I must savour.' 5* reader review'P. D. James is guaranteed to be worth reading.' 5* reader review'I would never give less than 5 stars to any P. D. James book. She is one of a kind, always constant, always wonderful writing, always great characters, and always a good mystery that you cannot put down.' 5* reader review'P. D. James writes mysteries for ordinary people. Her characters are relatable and her hero is dynamic. But don't expect cell phones or computers. Her stories are strictly old school, which is what I love about them.' 5* reader review'Crime writing at its very best!' 5* reader reviewPRAISE FOR P. D. JAMES:'A legend.' VAL MCDERMID'Masterful.' MICK HERRON'The greatest contemporary writer of classic crime.' SUNDAY TIMES 'Nobody can put the reader in the eye of the storm quite like P. D. James.' SUNDAY EXPRESS'One of the literary greats. Her sense of place was exquisite, characterisation and plotting unrivalled.' MARI HANNAH'There are very few thriller writers who can compete with P. D. James at her best.' SPECTATOR'Simply a wonderful writer.' NEW YORK TIMES'The queen of English crime.' GUARDIAN
£9.99
Faber & Faber OK, Mr Field
Mr Field, a concert pianist travelling back from a performance in London, fractures his left wrist in a train crash. On a whim, he uses his compensation cheque to buy a house he has seen only in a newspaper, a replica of Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye built on a stretch of coast outside Cape Town. When he moves there with his wife Mim, the house - which Le Corbusier designed as 'a machine for living' - has a disturbing effect. Mim disappears without apology or explanation and Mr Field can barely summon the strength to search for her.OK, Mr Field is funny and beguiling and like nothing you've ever read. It dwells in the silences between words, in the gaps in conversations, and in the distances between people. It confidently guides us into new fictional territory.
£12.99
Faber & Faber Christmas in Austin
'Intricately, intimately written, with some wonderful prose and delicate dialogue.' Guardian'A loving and nuanced portrait of a family's myriad functions.' The New Yorker'Utterly absorbing.' Financial Times'A tour de force.' Sunday TimesA Luminous family saga from one of Granta's Best Young British NovelistsWhen the four Essinger children gather in Austin for Christmas, they all bring their news. Nathan wants to become a federal judge. Susie's husband has taken a job in England. Jean has asked her boyfriend and (once-married) boss to meet her family. Paul has broken up with Dana, mother of their son Cal. But their parents have plans, too, and Liesel, the materfamilias, has invited Dana and Cal to stay, hoping to bring them back together. As the week unfolds, each of the Essingers has to confront the tensions and conflicts between old families and new. Rich, intimate, and deeply perceptive, Christmas in Austin beautifully explores the deep-rooted division between the world we grow up in, and the life we make for ourselves.'A subtle, complex, grown-up study of a modern family. There's something pleasurable and astute to be found on every page.' Literary Review
£9.04
Faber & Faber Travesties
'Tom Stoppard's Travesties is witty, playful and wise. Forty years on, it is starting to look timeless as well.' Sunday Times'It is a champagne cocktail, compounded of a balletic nimbleness of invention, a bewildering intricacy of design which reaches the sublime heights where mathematics merge with poetry, and the audacious juggling of a master conjuror.' Sunday Telegraph 'A dazzling pyrotechnical feat that combines Wildean pastiche, political history, artistic debate, spoof reminiscence, and song-and-dance in marvellously judicious proportions. The text itself is a Joycean web of literary allusions; yet it also radiates sheer intellectual joie de vivre, as if Stoppard were delightedly communicating the fruits of his own researches.' GuardianTravesties was first performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre, London, in June 1974. This edition includes a new preface by the author, and revisions made by him for a revival at the Menier Chocolate Factory, London, in October 2016.?
£9.99
Faber & Faber Elizabeth and Zenobia
Elizabeth is a thoughtful, quiet girl, ever cautious and just a little bit timid. Zenobia is everything Elizabeth would like to be, and more: bold and unafraid and wildly imaginative. The problem is ... only Elizabeth can see Zenobia. When they arrive at their new home, the imposing Witheringe House, Zenobia is convinced it's haunted and eagerly tries to contact a spirit presence. Elizabeth is relieved when her efforts come to nothing.But then this dark and foreboding manor begins to reveal some extraordinary secrets... Shortlisted for a major Australian children's writing prize, this beautiful novel is about finding courage, about friendship, about the power of the imagination. With all the hallmarks of a children's classic, this would sit on the shelf between Neil Gaiman's Coraline and Robin Stevens's Murder Most Unladylike. Jessica Miller is an outstanding new talent.
£9.31
Faber & Faber Uncle Vanya
Tea's cold, lunch is late and the great Professor has turned out to be a fraud - for Uncle Vanya, life has gone wonky, it's gone to hell.Only one thing can save him - a glamorous woman's love. But she's not interested either. And what's worse, she's married to the Professor.Samuel Adamson new version of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya - a dark and funny exploration of cross-purposed love, bitter jealousy and a dysfunctional family - opened at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, in February 2015.
£10.30
Faber & Faber Kitchen Disco
At night when you are sleeping There's a party in your house, It's a pumping, jumping, funky bash When all the lights go out . . .When the sun goes down, the Kitchen Disco starts up - and all the fruit in the fruit bowl come out to play. There are lemons who break-dance, tangerines who twirl and some very over-excited apples. Kitchen Disco is a zany and hilarious rhyming picture book for young children, featuring a stunning holographic foil spread in the middle of the book.'A party season essential.' The Times'Absurdly catchy account of what the fruit gets up to when the household sleeps.' Metro
£8.42
Faber & Faber Poetry Please
BBC Radio 4's Poetry Please is the longest-running broadcast of verse anywhere in the world. First aired in 1979, the programme, a request show which broadcasts to two million listeners a week, has become a unique record of the country's best-loved poems over the decades since its inception. The BBC has looked back through its rich archive of recordings to produce a poll of the most asked for and most broadcast pieces ever: fifty of those poems are read here by Adjoa Andoh and Anton Lesser, both regular voices for the programme. The selection includes poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, William Blake, Rupert Brooke, Lord Byron, G.K. Chesterton, T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, John Keats, Edward Lear, Sylvia Plath, Christina Rossetti, William Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas, William Wordsworth, and W.B. Yeats
£11.68
Faber & Faber The Sunday Sessions: Philip Larkin reading his poetry
The Sunday Sessions consists of twenty-six poems, the contents of two tapes recorded by Philip Larkin in Hull in February 1980 - reportedly, each on a Sunday, after lunch with John Weeks, a sound engineer and colleague of the poet. The tapes, which contain work from Larkin's first major collection, The North Ship, as well as poems from his best-known collections, The Whitsun Weddings and High Windows, remained 'lost' for over two decades, lying on a shelf in the garage in which they were recorded. Since their rediscovery they have been the subject of widespread media attention, including a BBC Radio 4 Archive Hour documentary. Their contents are here published in full for the first time.
£15.29
Faber & Faber Art
Serge has bought a modern work of art for a large sum of money. Marc hates the painting and cannot believe that a friend of his could possibly want such a work. Yvan attempts, unsuccessfully, to placate both sides with hilarious consequences. The question is: Are you who you think you are or are you who your friends think you are?
£10.99
Faber & Faber Dark Tides
From the number one bestselling author of SAFE HOUSE comes a story about friendship, family, secrets, lies, and the things we do for love.When Claire Cooper was eight, her mother disappeared during Hop-tu-naa, the Manx Halloween. When Claire was eighteen, she and her friends took part in a Hop-tu-naa dare that went terribly wrong. Now in her early twenties and a police officer, what happened that Hop-tu-naa night has come back to haunt them all, and Claire must confront her deepest fears in order to stop a killer from striking again.For fans of Stephen King and Harlan Coben, this is I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER meets THE WICKER MAN from one of the country's new generation of thriller writers. 'Ewan has become a master storyteller.' Ann Cleeves'A rising star of the genre.' Simon Kernick
£9.08
Faber & Faber Lake Wobegon Days
Lake Wobegon Days is the marvellous chronicle of an imaginary place located somewhere in the middle of the state (but not on the map) and named after an Indian word meaning 'Here we are!' or 'We sat all day in the rain waiting for you.' From the narrator - a skinny Protestant kid fascinated by the Catholic church - we learn of the town's beginnings and of the settlers who made their lives there. A contemporary classic filled with warmth and humour, sadness and tenderness, songs and poems, it is also an unforgettable portrait of small-town America.
£10.99
Faber & Faber Elgar: Child of Dreams
Jerrold Northrop Moore pursues his quest for the essential Elgar and sets out the story of an extraordinarily creative life. It shows themes of childhood, fantasy and vision fusing into a mature style of nobility and nostalgia. Above all it links the composer to the English landscape that formed the backdrop to all of his work, from his earliest years. This powerful short book is the outcome of half a century's thought and reflection by a leading Elgar biographer.
£10.99
Faber & Faber An Evil Eye
When the body of a Russian agent is found down a monastery well, Yashim knows exactly who to blame. Fevzi Ahmet Pasha, commander of the Ottoman fleet.Years ago, when Yashim first entered the sultan's service, Fevzi Ahmet was his mentor. Ruthless, cruel, and - in Yashim's eyes - ultimately ineffective, he is the only man who makes him afraid. And now Yashim must confront the secret that Fevzi Pasha has been keeping all these years, a secret whose roots lie deep in the tortured atmosphere of the sultan's harem, where normal rules are suspended, and women can simply disappear.Once again, Yashim and his friends encounter treachery and politics, played out against the backdrop of 1840s Istanbul.
£9.99
Faber & Faber A Crooked Tree
My mother made a snap decision. How could we know it would change us forever?'Brimming with curiosity and wonder.' Irish Times'Lushly atmospheric.' Daily Mail'Thoroughly gripping.' Lucy Caldwell'Brilliant.' Sara BaumeRage. That's the feeling engulfing the car as Ellen's mother swerves over to the hard-shoulder and orders her daughter out onto the roadside. Ignoring the protests of her other children, she accelerates away, leaving Ellen standing on the gravel verge in her school pinafore and knee socks as the light fades.What would you do as you watch your little sister getting smaller in the rear view window? How far would you be willing to go to help her? The Gallagher children are going to find out. This moment is the beginning of a summer that will change everything.
£13.39
Faber & Faber Groundskeeping: 'An extraordinary debut' ANN PATCHETT
'Beautifully textured ... Anne Tyler by way of Sally Rooney.' New York Times'A coming-of-age story inextricably bound with a love story.' MAGGIE SHIPSTEAD'Smart, funny, exhilarating.' LILY KINGEager to clean up his act after his troubled early twenties, Owen has returned to Kentucky to take a job as a groundskeeper at a small college in the Appalachian foothills, one which allows him to enrol on their writing course.It's there that he meets Alma, a Writer-in-Residence, who seems to have everything Owen doesn't - a prestigious position, an Ivy League education, and published success as a writer. They begin a secret relationship, and as they grow closer, Alma, from a supportive, liberal family of Bosnian immigrants, struggles to understand Owen's fraught relationship with his own family and home.Exploring the boundaries between life and art, and how our upbringings affect the people we can become, Groundskeeping is at heart a love story - a novel about two very different people navigating the turbulence of an all-consuming relationship, and the complications which can ruin it.
£8.99
Faber & Faber Hello, Mum: The Perfect Mother's Day Gift
'Dunbar perfectly captures both the blissful, simple joy and the earth-shattering frustration that is the parenting pendulum. Gorgeous.' ELLIE TAYLOR'A beautiful gift of a book . . . had me howling and tearing up!' GIOVANNA FLETCHER'Tender, funny, sometimes heartbreaking snapshots of motherhood.'SHAPPI KHORSANDI'Brilliant . . . Made me feel less alone.' JOSIE LONGFantastically funny, wise and charming motherhood sketches from award-winning illustrator Polly Dunbar.'Go away, I'm busy writing about the beauty of motherhood.'Polly Dunbar is an award-winning illustrator who usually draws for children rather than adults, but when she had her own sons, she started recording the beautiful and maddening moments of parenthood with a doodle.Hello, Mum is her visual diary of the magical highs and absurd lows that many parents will recognise - from the shock and awe of the baby days to the delight (and terror) of the toddler years and the mayhem of sibling rivalry. Dunbar's fantastically funny, wise and enchanting drawings capture this precious and fleeting time with heart-touching perfection.
£12.99
Faber & Faber Into the Trees
Harriet Norton won't stop crying. Her parents, Ann and Thomas, are being driven close to insanity and only one thing will help. Mysteriously, their infant daughter will only calm when she's under the ancient trees of Bleasdale forest.The Nortons sell their town-house and set up home in an isolated barn. Secluded deep in the forest, they are finally approaching peace - until one night a group of men comes through the trees, ready to upend their lives and threaten everything they've built. Into the Trees is the story of four dispossessed people, drawn to the forest in search of something they lack and finding their lives intertwining in ways they could never have imagined. In hugely evocative and lyrical writing, Robert Williams lays bare their emotional lives, set against the intense and mysterious backdrop of the forest. Compelling and haunting, Into the Trees is a magisterial novel.
£7.19
Faber & Faber Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat
A wonderful new picture book version of one of T. S. Eliot's most popular cat poems from a timeless magical partnership.We must find him or the train can't start!All aboard as Skimbleshanks, the Railway Cat, stars in the third picture-book pairing from Arthur Robins and T. S. Eliot's Old Possum's cats, set on the Night Mail train where Skimble won't let anything go wrong.To sit alongside other classics such as The Gruffalo, The Tiger Who Came to Tea, and Spot.'Beautifully illustrated to bring the poem to life.' Independent'A fabulous way to introduce young readers to poetry.' Huffington Post
£7.19