FaberBooks

1606 was the year William Shakespeare wrote King Lear, Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra. It was also the year that plague returned to London, and King James wanted to turn England and Scotland into a united Britain. And the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot brings it shockingly close to Shakespeare's door. Ten years ago James Shapiro won the Samuel Johnson Prize for his bestseller 1599: A Year in th...

Three interlocking worlds. Four people looking for answers. But who controls the future – or the past? Bestselling novelist Iain Pears discusses his new work ARCADIA, to be read as an app, written using specially-commissioned software and developed for readers by Touchpress and Faber, the partners behind multi-award-winning apps including The Waste Land and Shakespeare’s Sonnets for iPad. It will...

Brian Cathcart's book The News from Waterloo tells the incredible story of how the story of Wellington's victory took 3 days to reach England. In this audio specially recorded for the book Hugh Grant reads Wellington's famous dispatch which told the world of the victory.

The poems in David Harsent's new collection Fire Songs (winner of the 2014 T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry), whether single poems, dramatic sequences, or poems that 'belong to one another', share a dark territory and a sometimes haunting, sometimes steely, lyrical tone.

The poems in David Harsent's new collection Fire Songs (winner of the 2014 T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry), whether single poems, dramatic sequences, or poems that 'belong to one another', share a dark territory and a sometimes haunting, sometimes steely, lyrical tone.

The poems in David Harsent's new collection Fire Songs (winner of the 2014 T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry), whether single poems, dramatic sequences, or poems that 'belong to one another', share a dark territory and a sometimes haunting, sometimes steely, lyrical tone.

The poems in David Harsent's new collection Fire Songs (winner of the 2014 T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry), whether single poems, dramatic sequences, or poems that 'belong to one another', share a dark territory and a sometimes haunting, sometimes steely, lyrical tone. Here is David Harsent reading one of the poems from the collection, 'Armistice.'

The poems in David Harsent's new collection Fire Songs (winner of the 2014 T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry), whether single poems, dramatic sequences, or poems that 'belong to one another', share a dark territory and a sometimes haunting, sometimes steely, lyrical tone. Here's David Harsent reading 'M. A. D. 1971', which can be found towards the end of the collection.

The poems in David Harsent's new collection Fire Songs (winner of the 2014 T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry), whether single poems, dramatic sequences, or poems that 'belong to one another', share a dark territory and a sometimes haunting, sometimes steely, lyrical tone. Here is David Harsent reading the opening poem from the collection - 'Fire: a song for Mistress Askew'.

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 (especia...

Jenny Uglow is the acclaimed author of many great works of history. Her new book, In These Times, tells the story of what happened in Britain during the Napoleonic wars. In this podcast she talks about her inspiration, and some of the many remarkable stories she uncovered along the way. We know the thrilling, terrible stories of the battles of the Napoleonic wars - but what of those left behind? T...

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...

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...

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...

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...

'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

'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

'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: http://bit.ly/1wQCx3i Audiobook also available: http://amzn.to/1qNzFyX

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 hi...

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 nece...

Eimear McBride reads the audibook of A Girl is a Half-formed Thing, available now through Audible - http://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Fiction/A-Girl-Is-a-Half-Formed-Thing-Audiobook/B00MBV8FSA/ref=a_search_c4_1_1_srImg?qid=1407254527&sr=1-1 A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing is an unforgettable novel from a major new literary talent. Eimear McBride's award-winning debut novel tells the story of a young woman...

Leading international economist Gerard Lyons spent nearly thirty years working in the City and is now Chief Economic Advisor to the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. In 2010 and 2011 Bloomberg ranked him the number one global forecaster out of 400 leading economists, so his views on where we are heading economically are worth listening to. In his new book The Consolations of Economics he lays out hi...

Roderick Bailey was able to draw on long-classified documents for his dazzling recreation of the cloak-and-dagger war fought by British secret agents in the Special Operations Executive (SOE) against Mussolini's Fascist Italy during the Second World War, which climaxed in one of the most extraordinary episodes of the whole conflict. Now stationed as a historian at the University of Oxford, Bailey...

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...

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 collect...