Faber & Faber

Mothers is peopled by men and women who find themselves at crossroads or dead ends – characters who search without knowing what they seek. From remote and wild Exmoor to ancient Swedish burial sites and hedonistic Mexican weddings, these stories lay bare the emotional and psychic damage of life and love in a stunning debut […]

The debut cookbook from Celebrity Masterchef 2014 Winner, Sophie Thompson! ‘For me, cooking has always been about sharing and spending time with pals and family, luring them in with tasty morsels so they’d want to stay all day… These recipes have been handed down, invented, begged and borrowed and ultimately made my own. I hope […]

You’re about to die. What would your final meal be? This question has long troubled Jay Rayner. As a man more obsessed with his lunch than is strictly necessary, the idea of a showpiece last supper is a tantalising prospect. But wouldn’t knowledge of your imminent demise ruin your appetite? So, Jay decided to cheat […]

Kathy, Ruth and Tommy were pupils at Hailsham – an idyllic establishment situated deep in the English countryside. The children there were tenderly sheltered….

In a sublime story cycle, Kazuo Ishiguro explores ideas of love, music and the passing of time. From the piazzas of Italy to the Malvern Hills, a London flat to the ‘hush-hush floor’ of an…..

Connell and Marianne grow up in the same small town in rural Ireland. The similarities end there; they are from very different worlds. When they both earn places at Trinity College in Dublin, a connection that has grown between them lasts long into the following years. This is an exquisite love story about how a […]

David Toop’s extraordinary work of sonic history travels from the rainforests of Amazonas to the megalopolis of Tokyo via the work of artists as diverse as Brian Eno, Sun Ra, Erik Satie, Kate Bush, Kraftwerk and Brian Wilson. Beginning in 1889 at the Paris exposition when Debussy first heard Javanese music performed, Ocean of Sound […]

A pianist has an accident and is forced to abandon his career. He and his wife move to South Africa to live in a house he has developed an obsession with-a house built by a South African architect inspired by Le Corbusier. Within weeks of arriving, Mr Field’s wife inexplicably leaves him, to which he […]

Hannah Arendt’s penetrating observations of the modern world, based on a profound knowledge of the past, have been fundamental to our understanding of the political landscape. On Revolution is her classic exploration of a phenomenon that has reshaped the globe. From the eighteenth-century rebellions in America and France to the explosive changes of the twentieth-century, Arendt […]

Everything I’ve ever done Everything I ever do Every place I’ve ever been Everywhere I’m going to Over a career that spans four decades and thirteen studio albums with Pet Shop Boys, Neil Tennant has consistently proved himself to be one of the most elegant and stylish of contemporary lyricists. Arranged alphabetically, One Hundred Lyrics […]

‘[A] mesmerizing portrait of a now vanished world. Aciman’s story of Alexandria is the story of his own family, a Jewish family with Italian and Turkish roots that tied its future to Egypt and made its home there for three generations, only to find itself peremptorily expelled by the Government in the early 1960’s. It […]

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 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 […]