Faber & Faber

Ryunosuke Akutagawa was one of Japan’s great writers – author of the stories ‘Rashomon’ and ‘In a Bamboo Grove’, most famously – who lived through Japan’s turbulent Taisho period of 1912 to 1926, including the devastating 1923 Earthquake, only to take his own life at the age of just thirty-five in 1927. These are the […]

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 […]

I can confirm that should you ever find yourself on stage playing the bass guitar with tree left hands, it is usually he one in the middle that is the real one. The other two are probably phantoms. Playing the Bass with 3 Left Hands tells the story of one of the most influential, revered […]

I can confirm that should you ever find yourself on stage playing the bass guitar with tree left hands, it is usually he one in the middle that is the real one. The other two are probably phantoms. Playing the Bass with 3 Left Hands tells the story of one of the most influential, revered […]

Legendarily reticent, perverse and misleading, Prince is one of the few remaining 80s superstars who still, perhaps, remains unexplained. Now a firm fixture in the pop canon, where such classics as ‘Purple Rain’, ‘Sign o’ the Times’ and ‘Parade’ regularly feature in Best Ever Album polls, Prince is still, as he ever was, an enigma. […]

The Wu-Tang Clan is American hip-hop royalty. Rolling Stone called them the ‘best rap group ever’ and their debut album is considered one of the greatest of all time. Since 1992, they have released seven gold and platinum studio albums with sales of more than 40 million copies. So how did nine kids from the […]

Roots, Radicals & Rockers: How Skiffle Changed the World is the first book to explore this phenomenon in depth – a meticulously researched and joyous account that explains how skiffle sparked a revolution that shaped pop music as we have come to know it. It’s a story of jazz pilgrims and blues blowers, Teddy Boys […]

Documentary films are the rock and roll of our times. Why are they made? Who are in the tribe of documentary film-makers? Do their films really change the world? Eighteen years ago, Nick Fraser created BBC Storyville, producing films that won Oscars, BAFTAs, and Peabody Awards. He found film-makers from all across the world covering […]

When in 1999 I began writing for The New York Review of Books … my stance became that of the ingenuous Martian who had just landed on a gorgeous alien planet … Montaigne’s que sais-je. A little light, a little wonder, some skepticism, some awe, some squinting, some je ne sais quoi. Pick a thing […]

‘I’ve never read a book so fast and laughed so loudly while learning so much. Pascoe is a sage for our times.‘ Deborah Frances-White, The Guilty Feminist *** Why do some women still expect men to buy their dinner? Why do some men feel depressed after masturbating? What the hell is going on with porn? […]

As the sixties dream faded, a new flamboyant movement electrified the world: GLAM! In Shock and Awe, Simon Reynolds explores this most decadent of genres on both sides of the Atlantic. Bolan, Bowie, Suzi Quatro, Alice Cooper, New York Dolls, Slade, Roxy Music, Iggy, Lou Reed, Be Bop Deluxe, David Essex — all are represented […]

As the sixties dream faded, a new flamboyant movement electrified the world: GLAM! In Shock and Awe, Simon Reynolds explores this most decadent of genres on both sides of the Atlantic. Bolan, Bowie, Suzi Quatro, Alice Cooper, New York Dolls, Slade, Roxy Music, Iggy, Lou Reed, Be Bop Deluxe, David Essex — all are represented […]

When Miko moves temporarily to live and study in New York she leaves behind behind Ben, a confused, obsessive, 30-year-old theatre manager who finds himself desperately trying to answer the big questions…..

An old woman returns alone to the spot where as a young girl she used to meet her lover on his daily lunch break. An unsuspecting couple find themselves drawn to a window to watch the neighbours’ kinky play turn into something more sinister. Twin teenage sisters make an awkward pilgrimage with their ageing-hippie father. […]

Think ‘Woodstock’ and the mind turns to the seminal 1969 festival that crowned a seismic decade of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. But Woodstock itself was over 60 miles from the site to which the fabled half a million flocked. So why the misnomer? Quite simply, Woodstock was already a key location in the […]

Think ‘Woodstock’ and the mind turns to the seminal 1969 festival. But Woodstock itself was over sixty miles away, and already a key location in the rock landscape as a community of brilliant, dysfunctional musicians, opportunistic hippie capitalists, scheming dealers, and freaks dazed and confused by the search for spiritual truth. Central to this was […]

An incredible visual collection of the personal writings of musical icon Ian Curtis. So this is permanence, edited by Jon Savage with a foreword by Deborah Curtis, presents the intensely personal…..

Jack Sutherland, the narrator and protagonist of this memoir has, you night say, led a charmed life in the face of seeming damnation. A confirmed alcoholic in his early teens, by his twenties he was PA and bodyguard to the Hollywood stars most notably Michael Stipe, RuPaul and Mickey Rourke. His work took him to […]

Lennon. Dylan. Jagger. Belushi. Leibovitz. The story of Jann Wenner, Rolling Stone’s founder, editor, and publisher, is an insider’s trip through the backstages of storied concert venues, rock-star hotel rooms, and the political ups and downs of the latter half of the Twentieth Century, right up through the digital age: connecting the counterculture of Haight […]

Such a Long Journey is set in Bombay against the backdrop of war in the Indian subcontinent and the birth of Bangladesh, telling the story of the peculiar way in which the conflict impinges on the lives of Gustad Noble, an ordinary man, and his family. Such a Long Journey is a brilliant first novel […]

Picking up from his earlier collection Sleepwalk, and the precursor to his award-winning Shortcomings, the four stories in Summer Blonde are quintessential Tomine. Memorably featuring characters such as Neil, Carlo and Hillary Chan, among others, these are beautiful and haunting tales that illustrate with great sympathy the loneliness and bleak humour of modern life.

Scott Walker is undoubtedly one of the most brilliant, serious and intelligent of artists today. As one of the greatest lyricists of the 20th century and front man of globally loved pop trip, The Walker Brothers, Walker commands huge devotion. A major event, Sundog is the first ever selection of Walker’s lyrics curated by the […]

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 […]

The Romans have long since departed, and Britain is steadily declining into ruin. But at least the wars that once ravaged the country have ceased. The Buried Giant begins as a couple, Axl and Beatrice, set off across a troubled land of mist and rain in the hope of finding a son they have not […]

‘At 16, I pretended to fall in love with Alyssa…’ Meet James and Alyssa, two teenagers facing the fears of coming adulthood. As their story is told through chapters which alternate between each character’s perspective, however, this somewhat familiar teenage experience takes a more nihilistic turn. With James’s character becoming rapidly more sociopathic, they are […]

Gordy LaSure’s passionate about film. He eats film, he drinks film, and sometimes he’ll even watch a film. But most of all he loves talking to people about film: whether a comely student with low confidence and a father complex, a Studio “development’ exec who doesn’t trust his own judgement, or the countless people Gordy […]

In January 1969, before the world heard a note of their music, The MC5 was on the cover of Rolling Stone. The missing link between free jazz and punk rock, they were raw, primal, and unstoppable. Led by legendary guitarist Wayne Kramer, The MC5 was a reflection of the times: exciting, sexy, violent, chaotic, and […]

WINNER OF THE STANFORD DOLMAN TRAVEL WRITING AWARD 2019 One third of the earth’s land surface is desert, much of it desolate and inhospitable. What is it about this harsh environment that has captivated humankind throughout history? Travelling to five continents over three years, William Atkins discovers a realm that is as much internal as […]

The Joke, Milan Kundera’s first novel, gained him a huge following in his own country and launched his worldwide literary reputation. In his foreword Kundera explains why this completely revised translation is the definitive edition of his work. ‘It is impossible to do justice here to the subtleties, comedy and wisdom of this very beautiful […]

In a bold stylistic departure from his award-winning Killing and Dying, Tomine distills his art to the loose, lively essentials of cartooning, each pen stroke economically imbued with human depth.

In The Mathematics of the Breath and the Way, Charles Bukowski considers the art of writing, and the art of living as writer. Bringing together a variety of previously uncollected stories, columns, reviews, introductions, and interviews, this book finds him approaching the dynamics of his chosen profession with cynical aplomb, deflating pretentions and tearing down […]

Since its first appearance in 1931 Herbert Read’s introduction to the understanding of art has established itself as a classic of its kind. It provides a basis for the appreciation of paintings, sculpture and art-objects of all periods by defining the elements that went into their making. A compact survey of the world’s art, from […]

Twenty-three illustrated gothic tales from the dark corridors of the imagination of Tim Burton. Burton – the creative genius behind Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow and Nightmare Before Christmas, among others – now gives birth to a cast of gruesomely sympathetic children: misunderstood outcasts who struggle to find love and belonging in their cruel, cruel […]

From the Nobel Laureate comes a politically charged detective novel weaving through the underbelly of Peruvian privilege. In the 1990s, during the turbulent and deeply corrupt years of Alberto Fujimori’s presidency, two wealthy couples of Lima’s high society become embroiled in a disturbing vortex of erotic adventures and politically driven blackmail. One day Enrique, a […]

Marking his English language debut, The Park Bench is Chabouté’s beautiful and acclaimed story of a park bench and the lives it witnesses. At once intimate and universal, it is one of the most moving books you could hope to come across. For fans of The Fox and the Star, The Man Who Planted Trees […]

The Pixels of Paul Cezanne is a collection of essays by Wim Wenders which he presents his observations and reflections on the fellow artists who have influenced, shaped and inspired him. “How are they doing it?” is the key questions Wenders asks as he looks at the dance work of Pina Bausch, the paintings of […]

The Rise, The Fall, and The Rise is the extraordinary story, in her own words, of Brix Smith Start. Best known for her work in The Fall at the time when they were perhaps the most powerful and influential anti-authoritarian postpunk band in the world “This Nation’s Saving Grace, The Weird and Frightening World Of…” […]

The glamour, the parties, the excess, the highs: and, of course, the lows. The life of an international DJ playing at the most exotic destinations worldwide, in the most precarious of psychic circumstances, is rich to the point of toxicity. A globally-known DJ choosing to keep his identity secret takes us on a journey into […]

‘A lovely, thoughtful little book about the intelligence of cows.’ –James Rebanks, author of The Shepherd’s Life Cows are as varied as people. They can be highly intelligent or slow to understand, vain, considerate, proud, shy or inventive. Although much of a cow’s day is spent eating, they always find time for extra-curricular activities such […]

The slippery online ecosystem is the perfect breeding ground for identities: true, false, and in between. We no longer question the reality of online experiences but the reality of selfhood in the digital age. In The Secret Life: Three True Stories, Andrew O’Hagan issues three bulletins from the porous border between cyberspace and the ‘real […]

The Sick Bag Song chronicles Cave’s journey with his band the Bad Seeds on a twenty-two-day, North American tour. It is a highly personal account that blends memories, musings, poetry, lyrics, flights of fancy and road journal. Drawing inspiration from Leonard Cohen, John Berryman, Patti Smith, Sharon Olds, folk ballads and ancient texts, The Sick […]

Tom Gauld has created countless iconic strips for the Guardian over the course of his illustrious career. A master of condensing grand, highbrow themes into panel comics, his weekly strips embody his trademark sense of humour while simultaneously opening comics to an audience unfamiliar with the artistry that cartooning has to offer. Funny but serious, […]

We live in a world where strongman politics are rising; neo-liberalism has hollowed out political parties; and corporations have undermined democracy. Ordinary voters feel helpless to effect change, resulting in outbreaks of populist anger, and traditional platforms for debate are losing their viability as readers source information online. In this short and vital polemic, progressive […]

Kavanagh begins his time patrolling the Wall.

If he’s lucky, if nothing goes wrong, he only has to do two years of this. 729 more nights.

The best thing that can happen is that he survives and gets off the Wall and will never have to spend another day of his life anywhere near it.

The most cherished of poets, Philip Larkin is a writer with an unrivalled ability to touch readers with his evocations of English life. The Whitsun Weddings, his first volume with Faber and Faber, was published in 1964. This Faber Modern Classics edition includes a foreword by Alan Johnson MP. ‘Larkin, with his (in the best […]

The sound of ‘Wichita Lineman’ was the sound of ecstatic solitude, but then its hero was the quintessential loner. What a great metaphor he was: a man who needed a woman more than he actually wanted her. Written in 1968 by Jimmy Webb, ‘Wichita Lineman’ is the first philosophical country song: a heartbreaking torch ballad […]

In 1688, essayist Josef de la Vega described finance as both “the fairest and most deceitful business . . . the noblest and the most infamous in the world, the finest and most vulgar on earth.” The characterization of finance as deceitful, infamous, and vulgar still rings true today – particularly in the wake of […]

What do you do when you realise you have everything you think you’ve ever wanted but still feel completely empty? What do you do when it all starts to fall apart? The second volume of Moby’s extraordinary life story is a journey into the dark heart of fame and the demons that lurk just beneath […]

This Is Memorial Device, the debut novel by David Keenan, is a love letter to the small towns of Lanarkshire in the west of Scotland in the late 1970s and early 80s as they were temporarily transformed by the endless possibilities that came out of the freefall from punk rock. It follows a cast of […]

Joy Division emerged in the mid-70s at the start of a two-decades long Manchester scene that was to become much mythologised. It was then a city still labouring in the wake of the war and entering a phase of huge social and physical change, and something of this spirit made its way into the DNA […]

Tim Book Two is the follow-up to Telling Stories, the hugely successful memoir of Tim Burgess, singer of the Charlatans. It tells of his lifelong passion for vinyl and the shops that sell them. Tim asked a stellar cast of friends – from Iggy Pop to Cosey Fanni Tutti to Paul Weller – for recommendations, […]

At the launch party for her memoir Clothes Music Boys in 2014, Viv Albertine received the news her mother was dying. She left the party immediately and spent a few final hours with a woman who had been an enormous presence and force in her life. In the weeks that followed, Viv was left with […]

At the launch party for her memoir Clothes Music Boys in 2014, Viv Albertine received the news her mother was dying. She left the party immediately and spent a few final hours with a woman who had been an enormous presence and force in her life. In the weeks that followed, Viv was left with […]

Food-writer, cook and photographer Valeria Necchio shares the food and flavours at the heart of the Veneto region in North Eastern Italy. Veneto includes lovingly written recipes that capture the spirit of this beautiful and often unexplored region, and Valeria’s memories of the people and places that make the Veneto so special. Packed with fresh […]

When army officer Chike Ameobi is ordered to kill innocent civilians, he knows that it is time to leave. As he travels towards Lagos, he becomes the leader of a new platoon, a band of runaways who share his desire for a better life. Their arrival in the city coincides with the eruption of a […]

Herzog was once hailed by Francois Truffaut as the most important director alive. Famous for his frequent collaborations with mercurial actor Klaus Kinski – including the epics Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo, and the terrifying Nosferatu – and more recently with documentaries such as Grizzly Man, Cave of Forgotten Dreams and Into the […]

Tired of your boss bropropriating your ideas and presenting them as his own? Wondering if the pursuit of having it all has in fact resulted in having not very much? It is time to start channelling the spiky superwomen of history to conquer today. It is time to turn to women like Frida Kahlo and […]

The night Dad had a few cheeky ones after work, forgot the milk and tripped over the rubbish, Mum called him A Wild Thing and said “Don’t mind me!” and spent the rest of the night on the phone . . . In this hilarious, touching homage to Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, […]

In the mid-1980s the Happy Mondays emerged as the prime mischief makers on the Madchester scene. Chief protagonist was Shaun Ryder, a man whose lyrical street swagger in songs like Kinky Afro, 24 Hour Party People and Performance, would come to define a generation. Here, collected and edited for the first time, in trade and […]

Modern pop began in 1952 when the first British chart was published and the first 7″ singles were released. It ended (perhaps) in 1995 when Robson and Jerome reached the top of the charts with the…..