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

Experience a shipwrecked sailor's psychic disintegration into 'a naked madman on a rock' by the radical Nobel Laureate and author of Lord of the Flies.

An hour on this rock is a lifetime.

Christopher Martin, the sole survivor of a torpedoed destroyer, is stranded upon a rock in the middle of the Atlantic. Pitted against him are the sea, the sun, the brutal cold, and the aching terror of his isolation. To drink there is a pool of rainwater; to eat, seaweed and anemones, preyed upon by feathered reptiles. As he descends into the abyss of his consciousness, weathering lightning strikes of memory, Martin must try to assemble the truth of his fate - piece by terrible piece.

'A work of genius.' Philippa Gregory

'The utmost inventiveness ... No reader will forget the world it reveals.' Kingsley Amis

'Wizardry of the first order.' Observer

Pincher Martin - Audio Book 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

Nestor Kornblum - Overtone Chant

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)

"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!

Akhil Sharma was born in New Delhi and emigrated to the US in the late 1970s. Having initially pursued a career in investment banking he came to prominence as a writer in 2001 with his debut novel, An Obedient Father, which won the Hemingway/PEN Award. And in 2007 he was named as one of Granta's Best of Young American Novelists. So expectations for what Akhil would do next have been high for some time. Family Life, mirroring events in Akhil's own life - his brother suffered a severe head injury and was left brain-damaged - has been a dozen years in the writing, has undergone many drafts and considerable pruning. But it's now with us and being rapturously received on both sides of the Atlantic. 

Akhil Sharma: Family Life



'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

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)

Listen to Simon Armitage reading 'Nest Box' from Dwell

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

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

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'

'An immersive, polyphonic adventure.' Deborah Levy

Celebrating 100 years since first publication of 'modernism's lost masterpiece' (Julia Briggs).

In just twenty-two pages, Hope Mirrlees combines sensuous psychogeography with modernist avant garde poetics to create a dazzling single-day journey through interwar Paris in the eyes of a jaded flâneuse. Sights, smells, music, gem-encrusted tortoises, shrouded monuments – it's a truly glorious and immersive evocation of Paris in the springtime.

The cover of our edition is inspired by Sonia Delaunay's modernist designs, while she was living in Paris in the 1920s (with thanks to Eleanor Crow). The text inside reproduces, in Caslon Old Face type, the layout of the Hogarth Press edition (with thanks to Kate Ward). 

Deborah Levy summons the spirit of this 'fiercely independent, young and spirited, flawed and brilliant female writer' in her introductory foreword, Julia Briggs's line-by-line commentary unveils the verse's intricate allusions, while Mirrlees's biographer Sandeep Parmar summarises the social and biographical context in her afterword.

Hope Mirrlees (1887–1978) was a British translator, poet and novelist. She published three novels in her lifetime, Madeleine: One of Love’s Jansenists (1919), The Counterplot (1924) and the fantasy novel Lud-in-the-Mist (1926); three slim volumes of poetry, which culminated in Moods and Tensions (1976); and A Fly in Amber (1962), a biography of the British antiquarian Sir Robert Bruce Cotton.

With thanks to Charlotte Rampling, Lambert Wilson and Director James Lever, 
© Hope Mirrlees estate

Paris by Hope Mirrlees read by Charlotte Rampling and Lambert Wilson

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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