A small selection - six poems - from Jubilee Lines, a new poetry anthology celebrating the Queen's sixty years on the throne, edited by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy. For the full 60 poems, including 20 with added stills and archive film material, visit www.jubileelines.com.

Sixty Years in Sixty Poems: Jubilee Lines (A Selection)

Faber's occasional series of interviews with some of our leading poets, including Emma Jones, Michael Hofmann, David Harsent and Jo Shapcott (winner of the 2010 Costa Book of the Year). The poets talk us through their work, and read a few of the poets as they go along.

The Faber Poetry Podcast

Faber and Faber's monthly podcast, featuring authors in conversation with interviewer George Miller. Available for download, and completely free.

The Faber Books Podcast: Authors in Their Own Words

A series of one-off interviews, usually longer than normal, with some of our favourite Faber authors. Some have a great body of work to talk about, whilst others we capture on fleeting visits to the UK ...

Faber Authors Spotlight

Three recorded extracts from The Waste Land for iPad app - featuring actor Viggo Mortensen, Ted Hughes and T. S. Eliot himself.

The Waste Land Recordings

Dear Boy is the dramatic and inventive debut by Emily Berry. These characterful, intelligent and darkly witty poems explore lives lived strangely in unusual worlds, through a series of deft and seductive soliloquies. To accompany a Faber Poetry Podcast Emily reads a selection of poems, including 'Some Fears'.

Some Fears

Klara and the Sun is the first novel by Kazuo Ishiguro since he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 2017.

AVAILABLE TO PREORDER NOW

From the bestselling and Booker Prize winning author of Never Let me Go and The Remains of the Day, a stunning new novel - his first since winning the Nobel Prize in Literature - that asks, what does it mean to love? A thrilling feat of world-building, a novel of exquisite tenderness and impeccable restraint, Klara and the Sun is a magnificent achievement, and an international literary event.

Klara and the Sun Audio Book Extract

Set in Rhodesia in the 1960s, almost twenty years before Zimbabwe won independence and ended white minority rule, the novel’s heroine, Tambudzai Sigauke, embarks on her education. On her shoulders rest the economic hopes of her parents, siblings, and extended family, and within her burns the desire for “personhood,” to no longer be part of such an “undistinguished humanity.”

Immediately acclaimed by Alice Walker and Doris Lessing, the book has come to be considered one of Africa’s most important novels of the twentieth century.' Madeleine Thien

Nervous Conditions Audio Book Extract

A spoken word short story by Willy Vlautin, frontman of the band Richmond Fontaine, and author of the novels Lean on Pete, Northline and The Motel Life. 

The story features characters from Lean on Pete, and music by Richmond Fontaine. 

A Motorcycle for a Horse by Willy Vlautin

An extract from the audiobook of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, read by Maggie Gyllenhaal.

‘A modern classic.’ Guardian

‘A near-perfect work of art.’ Joyce Carol Oates

I was supposed to be having the time of my life . . .

Working as an intern for a New York fashion magazine in the summer of 1953, Esther Greenwood is on the brink of her future. Yet she is also on the edge of a darkness that makes her world increasingly unreal. Esther’s vision of the world shimmers and shifts: day-to-day living in the sultry city, her crazed men-friends, the hot dinner dances . . .

The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath’s only novel, is partially based on Plath’s own life. It has been celebrated for its darkly funny and razor sharp portrait of 1950s society, and has sold millions of copies worldwide.

ONE OF THE BBC'S '100 NOVELS THAT SHAPED OUR WORLD'

'As clear and readable as it is witty and disturbing.' New York Times Book Review

Reader responses:

'Plath's underrated humour shines through this startling account of 1950s 'normality'.'

'Very readable, often darkly funny, and feels fresh.'

'Plath's masterpiece . . . It's amazing how relevant this book still is.'

'So enthralling . . . So thought provoking, so vivid, that it's thoroughly engrossing.'

'I just couldn't put it down.'

'Ever better than I expected.'

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath – audiobook extract

Thomas Stearns Eliot, poet, critic, publisher, was born in St Louis, Missouri, in 1888 and died in London on 4 January 1965. In 1922, he published The Waste Land, a poem that exerted the single greatest influence on English poetry in the last century, and whose centenary will be marked by publication and events throughout the coming year.

Listen to Edoardo Ballerini read the opening lines from The Waste Land, taken from the audio book of the Centenary Edition available from 6 January 2022.

The Waste Land audio extract read by Edoardo Ballerini

In this extended interview, Australian poet Emma Jones discusses her debut collection 'The Striped World'. She discusses the origins of her writing as well as its themes and ideas, and reads extracts from her poems. 

Emma Jones on The Striped World

German-born poet and translator Michael Hofmann is here in conversation with George Miller. Hofmann reads from his work and reflects on his relationship with his father, the novelist Gert Hofmann.

Michael Hofmann in Conversation

Award-winning poet Jo Shapcott discusses her new collection 'Of Mutability' as well as some of her earlier work. The interview is interspersed with a selection of readings. We spoke to Jo in Summer 2010 and since then 'Of Mutability' has gone on to win the prestigious Costa Book of the Year Award, and was shortlisted for Best Collection at the 2010 Forward Poetry Prizes.

Jo Shapcott on Of Mutability and Other Poems

Nestor Kornblum - Overtone Chant

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was the long-awaited first novel from one of today’s most original and electrifying literary voices, Junot Diaz. The book was published early in 2008, which is when we were lucky enough to welcome Junot to the Faber offices, and when he gave this great interview.

Junot Diaz: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

In this extended interview, Sebastian Barry speaks about the many histories of Ireland and, even closer to home, remnants of his own family history to be found in his new book The Secret Scripture in the fictional shape of Roseanne McNulty, one of the novel's two narrators, confined to an asylum for sixty years.  
.

Sebastian Barry: The Secret Scripture

In a special two-part interview, George Miller talks to Kazuo Ishiguro about his new book Nocturnes, a collection of longish short stories with related themes of music and night, and ambition and disappointment. Under discussion are the challenges of writing in an unfamiliar form, and Ishiguro's approach to writing comedy. Here's the second part of the interview: https://soundcloud.com/faberbooks/kazuo-ishiguro-on-the-remains.

Kazuo Ishiguro: On Nocturnes and Other Books (Part 1)

In part two of our interview we discuss Kazuo Ishiguro's earlier books, including the Booker Prize-winning The Remains of the Day and The Unconsoled, which on publication baffled critics but is now viewed as one of the author's greatest achievements. There's discussion too of Ishiguro's childhood and memories of Japan, and what he's working on next. Here's part one of our interview: http://soundcloud.com/faberbooks/kazuo-ishiguro-on-nocturnes.

Kazuo Ishiguro: On The Remains of the Day and Other Books (Part 2)

Viggo Mortensen reads an extract from The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot. Part of The Waste Land app for iPad, now available to download in the App Store: http://bit.ly/kJATn3

Viggo Mortensen reads The Waste Land (The Fire Sermon, extract)

Ted Hughes reads an extract from The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot. Part of The Waste Land app for iPad, now available to download in the App Store: http://bit.ly/kJATn3

Ted Hughes reads The Waste Land (A Game of Chess, extract)

"April is the cruellest month..." In a rare recording from 1933, T.S. Eliot reads an extract from The Waste Land. Part of The Waste Land app for iPad, now available to download in the App Store: http://bit.ly/kJATn3

T.S. Eliot reads The Waste Land (The Burial of the Dead, extract)

Count Arthur Strong is a show business legend, after-dinner speaker and a leading authority on Ancient Egypt, having been stationed there during his nation service. He has countless friends in the showbiz world. People like Barry Cryer, the white haired one with glasses off 'I'm Sorry I Haven't Got A Clue' and 'Jokers Wild'. This is his first volume, of what he believes may be a six-volume collection, of his memoirs and it's available to buy now from Audible: http://bit.ly/1iSoNgT.

The audio version, read by the great man himself, is available now on CD and digital download.

Through It All I've Always Laughed: The Early Years of Count Arthur Strong!

John Lanchester's previous book on money and banking - the bestselling 'Whoops!' - was described by Will Self as 'the routemap to the crazed world of contemporary finance we've all been waiting for'. If 'Whoops!' was the routemap, then his new book, 'How to Speak Money' is the phrasebook. It shows you it's possible to learn to speak the language of money - possible, desirable and perhaps even necessary if we're to avoid feelings of complete helplessness and bafflement when confronted with the big financial forces that shape our lives.

John Lanchester: How to Speak Money

Welcome to the first of three podcasts from Faber this Autumn focusing on major new works of history. In the next two months we'll hear from Helen Castor and Jenny Uglow but today we're in conversation with Dan Jones, who completes a three-volume study of medieval Britain with The Hollow Crown, in which he charts the turbulent downfall of the Plantagenets and the rise of the Tudors. As Dan says himself, it's a story that's 'big, bloody and thrilling'.

Dan Jones: The Hollow Crown



'Six Poets: Hardy to Larkin' presents Alan Bennett's selection of English verse by his favourite poets, accompanied by his own enlivening commentary.

Read more about 'Six Poets' on the Faber website: bit.ly/1wQCx3i
Audiobook also available: amzn.to/1qNzFyX


'To an Athlete Dying Young' by A. E. Housman, read by Alan Bennett

'The Trees' by Philip Larkin, read by Alan Bennett

Our latest Faber Podcast is about a building – The Old Vic theatre on London’s South Bank, and the subject of a new book by journalist and writer Terry Coleman, whose many previous books include the authorised life of Laurence Olivier. Dating back almost two centuries the Old Vic is an institution that holds a place in national cultural life with few rivals – all the more surprising when you bear in mind it’s not a state-funded enterprise. The Old Vic has had to forge its own identity over the years, and the story Terry tells is full of highs and lows, triumphs and disasters, characters much larger than life – on and off-stage. ‘Theatre thrives on legends,’ he writes, and that is abundantly so in the case of the Old Vic.

Terry Coleman: The Old Vic

In this two-part Faber Podcast we talk to David Harsent about his eleventh poetry collection 'Fire Songs'. The poems in 'Fire Songs' are full of haunting imagery and writing of sheer visceral power, and part one of the interview focuses on the themes of Fire, War and its aftermath, and the Rat – an ineradicable creature, ‘survivor of Fire and Flood’ that remains unscathed after the Apocalypse with designs on inheriting the Earth. In part two Harsent discusses poems written in response to his experience of living with tinnitus, and concludes with a discussion of religion, in particular the disquieting figure of trickster Christ. Part two also has a complete reading of the first of the 'Fire Songs'.

David Harsent: Fire Songs (Part 1)

In this two-part Faber Podcast we talk to David Harsent whose eleventh poetry collection 'Fire Songs' was published in August. Writing about his previous collection, 'Night', Fiona Sampson in the Independent wrote: ‘Truly significant poets write like no one else, and David Harsent is both sui generis, and unsurpassed.’ Part one of this interview focused on the themes of Fire, War and its aftermath, and the Rat, an ineradicable creature that occupies the margins of our dreams. In part two Harsent discusses his experience of living with tinnitus, and concludes with a discussion of religion, in particular the disquieting figure of trickster Christ. Part two also includes a complete reading of the first of the 'Fire Songs'.

David Harsent: Fire Songs (Part 2)

This is the story of Joan of Arc as you have never heard it before, told by Helen Castor, author of the acclaimed bestseller and BBC documentary series She-Wolves. Instead of the icon, she gives us a living, breathing young woman; a roaring girl fighting the English, and taking sides in a bloody civil war that was tearing fifteenth-century France apart. In this podcast interview she discusses how she came to write the book, and her attempt to retell the story stripped of the myths and legends.

In Helen Castor's book she gives us a portrait of a 19-year-old peasant who hears voices from God; a teenager transformed into a warrior leading an army to victory, in an age that believed women should not fight. And it is also the story behind the myth we all know, a myth which began to take hold at her trial: that of the Maid of Orleans, the saviour of France, a young woman burned at the stake as a heretic, a woman who five hundred years later would be declared a saint.

Joan and her world are brought vividly to life in Helen Castor's refreshing new take on the medieval world. 

Helen Castor: Joan of Arc

In this edition of the Faber Podcast we talk to Australian novelist and long-time New York resident Peter Carey. His new book Amnesia is the story of a young female hacker - Gaby - whose Angel Worm virus creates havoc in the Australian prison system, and consequently also in the US, making her Public Enemy Number One. This 30-minute interview covers everything from US/Australian relations (especially post-1975 and America's role in the removal of the Gough Whitlam government), new forms of protest, activism and hacking, and those rumours that Carey was asked to ghost-write the Julian Assange story.

Peter Carey: Amnesia

Camille Ralphs reads My Word: from the Spiritual Diary of Dr Dee, a sequence of poems from her debut collection, After You Were, I Am (Faber & Faber, 2024), which is now available in audiobook, paperback and ebook.

'An astonishing adventure . . .This is poetry that delights in etymology and alchemical wordplay.' Guardian

'After You Were, I Am, showcases an ambition, seriousness and wit that make it strangely timeless – one feels it could have been published in any era and be worthy of a readership . . . I expect to be re-reading it for years to come.' Telegraph

My Word: from the Spiritual Diary of Dr Dee by Camille Ralphs

Lord of the Flies by William Golding - Audiobook

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro - Chapter One Opening

The - Bell - Jar - Audio - 2-mins

Yobbo - From - Look - We - Have - Coming - To - Dover - Audio - 2-mins

The Unnamable (Sound Art)

In a London flat, two young boys face the unbearable sadness of their mother's sudden death. Their father, a Ted Hughes scholar and scruffy romantic, imagines a future of well-meaning visitors and emptiness.

In this moment of despair they are visited by Crow - antagonist, trickster, healer, babysitter. This sentimental bird is drawn to the grieving family and threatens to stay until they no longer need him.

As weeks turn to months and the pain of loss gives way to memories, the little unit of three starts to heal.

In this extraordinary debut - part novella, part polyphonic fable, part essay on grief - Max Porter's compassion and bravura style combine to dazzling effect. Full of unexpected humour and profound emotional truth, Grief Is the Thing with Feathers marks the arrival of a thrilling new talent.

Max Porter reads from Grief is the Thing with Feathers

The poet Frederick Seidel reads "Robespierre" taken from his latest collection, Widening Income Inequality.

Frederick Seidel reads "Robespierre"

It's 1803, and Darcy and Elizabeth have been blissfully married for six years. But a murderer in their midst has other ideas ... 'Death Comes to Pemberley' is a brilliant new 'sequel' to Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice' - but one with a deadly twist. In this extended interview, P. D. James shares her appreciation for Austen, and discusses the challenge of taking such a beloved work of fiction in a wholly unexpected direction ... 
.

P. D. James: Death Comes to Pemberley

Jenny Agutter reads from the audiobook of P.D. James' The Mistletoe Murder. 

As the acknowledged 'Queen of Crime', P. D. James was frequently commissioned by newspapers and magazines to write a special short story for Christmas. Four of the best of these have been drawn from the archives and published here. P. D. James's prose illuminates each of these perfectly formed stories, making them ideal reading for the darkest days of the year. While she delights in the secrets that lurk beneath the surface at family gatherings, her Christmas stories also provide tantalizing puzzles to keep the reader guessing. 

P. D. James embraces the challenge of the short-story form, and ingeniously weaves the strands of plot, setting, characterisation and surprise to create a satisfying whole within only a few thousand words. 

From the title story about a strained country-house party on Christmas Eve, to another about an illicit affair that ends in murder, and two cases for James's poet-detective Adam Dalgliesh, each treats the reader to James's masterfully atmospheric storytelling, always with the lure of a mystery to be solved.

Jenny Agutter reads from P. D. James' The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories

An excerpt from the audio book of 4 3 2 1, read by the author, Paul Auster.

Paul Auster reads from 4321

The Sunday Sessions consists of twenty-six poems, the contents of two tapes recorded by Philip Larkin in Hull in February 1980, and contains some of his best known and well-loved poems. Only recently rediscovered, the tapes were originally published as a bestselling Faber audiobook, and are now being released as a special vinyl edition to reflect Larkin’s own love of record collecting. Beautifully designed in homage to the great jazz records of the fifties and sixties, and produced on heavyweight vinyl, the release is an unmissable treat for Larkin fans and vinyl enthusiasts alike.
Available to buy here: http://bit.ly/ApHMEi


Philip Larkin reads The Sunday Sessions (Toads)

Stewart Lee's previous book How I Escaped My Certain Fate drew on three live shows to deconstruct the nature of stand-up comedy. With its heavy use of footnotes there was a nod in structure to T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land. For his new book, the slimmer volume Stewart Lee! The 'If You Prefer a Milder Comedian Please Ask for One!' EP, Lee draws inspiration from The Specials' 1980 five-track EP The Special AKA Live!, live material surplus to any long player. This new book is based on just one stand-up show, in which Stewart Lee examines the mechanics of comedy and the stand-up's craft, as he explains in this interview with comedy critic and Resonance FM DJ Ben Thompson.

If You Prefer a Milder Comedian - Stewart Lee: The Podcast

Hannah Sullivan reads 'You, Very Young in New York' from her debut collection, THREE POEMS.

Hannah Sullivan reading 'You, Very Young in New York'

From the frontline of cutting-edge scientific research, Professor Robin Dunbar's new book 'The Science of Love and Betrayal' is a brilliant and sparkling exploration of the extraordinary nature of romantic love. The book tackles some of the most fundamental questions of human behaviour, including - why do we as a species pairbond when few other mammals do? What are the evolutionary advantages of monogamy over promiscuity? And much more.

Robin Dunbar: The Science of Love and Betrayal

A clip of Academy Award-winning actor Jeremy Irons reading T. S. Eliot's 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' from a landmark recording released April 2018.
https://www.faber.co.uk/9780571342709-the-poems-of-t-s-eliot-read-by-jeremy-irons.html

Jeremy Irons reading T. S. Eliot's 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' - Clip

Read here by Lyndsey Marshal, this is Liz Lochhead's contribution to 'Jubilee Lines', Carol Ann Duffy's anthology of poems marking 60 years of the Queen's reign. It's a poem about 1966, capturing the age of Vidal Sasson, Mary Quant and emerging feminism. With a poem for each of the years of the Queen's reign, Jubilee Lines offers both a unique portrayal of the times in which we have lived, and an essential portrait of today. The poems celebrate the way we speak, the way we chronicle, the way we love and fight, honour and remember.

1966 | Photograph, Art Student, Female, Working Class by Liz Lochhead

Read by Lyndsey Marshal, 'Margaret Kirk née Baxter' is Jackie Kay's contribution to Jubilee Lines, a new poetry anthology edited by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, marking the Diamond Jubilee. With a poem for each of the years of the Queen's reign, Jubilee Lines offers both a unique portrayal of the times in which we have lived, and an essential portrait of today. The poems celebrate the way we speak, the way we chronicle, the way we love and fight, honour and remember.

1999 | Margaret Kirk née Baxter by Jackie Kay

Read by Samantha Bond, 'World Events' is Ruth Fainlight's contribution to Jubilee Lines, a new poetry anthology edited by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, marking the Diamond Jubilee. With a poem for each of the years of the Queen's reign, Jubilee Lines offers both a unique portrayal of the times in which we have lived, and an essential portrait of today. The poems celebrate the way we speak, the way we chronicle, the way we love and fight, honour and remember.

1963 | World Events by Ruth Fainlight

Read here by Lyndsey Marshal, '1977 (I am quite sure of this)' is Imtiaz Dharker's contribution to 'Jubilee Lines', a new anthology of sixty poems published to mark the Diamond Jubilee. With a poem for each of the years of the Queen's reign, Jubilee Lines offers both a unique portrayal of the times in which we have lived, and an essential portrait of today. The poems celebrate the way we speak, the way we chronicle, the way we love and fight, honour and remember.

1977 | 1977 (I am quite sure of this) by Imtiaz Dharker

Read here by Dan Stevens, 'Winged Back' is Dannie Abse's contribution to 'Jubilee Lines', a new anthology of sixty poems published to mark the Diamond Jubilee. With a poem for each of the years of the Queen's reign, Jubilee Lines offers both a unique portrayal of the times in which we have lived, and an essential portrait of today. The poems celebrate the way we speak, the way we chronicle, the way we love and fight, honour and remember.

1953 | Winged Back by Dannie Abse

The Harvest Moon by Ted Hughes, taken from Poems for Children, read by the author.

Ted Hughes' poetry for children is as rich, powerful and magical as anything he wrote. This new recording consists of a collection of the children's poems of Ted Hughes, introduced and selected by acclaimed writer Michael Morpurgo, and read by both Morpurgo and actor Juliet Stevenson.
For more information on the audiobook: http://faber.co.uk/work/poems-for-children/9780571259496/

The Harvest Moon by Ted Hughes

Simon Armitage, the UK's new Poet Laureate, reads 'Last', a poem from his new book, Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic, which brings together work from across his writing career. This is an extract from the audiobook edition of Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic, available from all good audiobook retailers now.

Simon Armitage reads his poem 'Last'

Set in a world that Barbara Kingsolver knows well - rural Tennessee - Flight Behaviour follows events in the life of Dellarobia Turnbow, a woman in her late twenties who married the wrong man too young, and who gave up her own plans on becoming pregnant aged 17. One day, on the way to her first tryst with a lover, she has an encounter which at first she can't explain - millions of monarch butterflies that have been thrown off course by the effects of climate change, setting the forest aglow like a living sea of fire. The changes that the butterflies bring to Dellarobia's life - her awakening to what is at stake and how she can channel her own flight behaviour - are at the core of this beautifully written novel, which is informed of course by Kingsolver's own knowledge and experience as a biologist and conservationist.

Barbara Kingsolver: Flight Behaviour

Faber and Faber is one of the great independent publishing houses in London. We were established in 1929 by Geoffrey Faber and our first editor was T. S. Eliot. We are proud to publish prize-winning fiction and non-fiction, as well as an unrivalled list of modern poets and playwrights. Among our list of writers we have five Booker Prize winners and twelve Nobel Laureates, and we continue to seek out the most exciting and innovative writers at work today. 

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