Melissa Harrison has put together a playlist of music that inspired her nature diary The Stubborn Light of Things. She has released a series of top-rated podcasts, also called The Stubborn Light of Things. The audiobook of her new book features an exclusive new episode. Here’s a ‘best of’ collection of extracts taken from across…
Announcing Light Perpetual, a new novel from Francis Spufford
Faber to publish an ingenious and profound new novel by Francis Spufford, the best-selling, prize-winning author of Golden Hill. From the winner of the Costa First Novel Award, the RSL Ondaatje Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize comes a novel of the everyday, the miraculous and the everlasting. November 1944. A German rocket incinerates a…
Funny You Should Ask… Your Questions Answered by the QI Elves
‘The QI Elves are barnstormingly brilliant. Everything in this book reminds us of the extraordinary science, nature, history, humanity and everyday wonders that surround us.’ Zoe Ball The QI Elves are the brains behind the enduringly popular BBC TV panel show QI. Every Wednesday the Elves appear on The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show where they answer the ponderings and…
Melissa Harrison’s The Stubborn Light of Things
If you are a lover of podcasts you will probably already know about Melissa Harrison’s top-rated nature series The Stubborn Light of Things. This November we are delighted to publish her nature diary, also titled The Stubborn Light of Things. You can pre-order copies from indie bookshops such as Woodbridge Emporium, Bookseller Crow, Big Green Books, as well…
Amelia Gentleman reads from her Orwell Prize shortlisted book The Windrush Betrayal
‘[Gentleman’s] reporting proves why an independent press is so vital.’ Reni Eddo-Lodge ‘A timely reminder of what truly great journalists can achieve.’ David Olusoga ‘It is impossible to overstate the importance of this heartbreaking book.’ James O’Brien Amelia Gentleman’s exposé of the Windrush scandal shocked the nation, and led to the resignation of Amber Rudd…
Faber announces a chilling new collection of stories from John Lanchester
Faber to publish Reality, and Other Stories by John Lanchester Faber will publish Reality, and Other Stories by John Lanchester, the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Wall, on 1 October. Alex Bowler, Publisher, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, plus EU, excluding Canada, from Caradoc King at United Agents. Lanchester’s first book of shorter fiction is a gathering of modern ghost stories and uncanny contemporary tales. Alex Bowler said:…
A dazzling satire of family and technology in the twenty-first century from Man Booker Prize-winner DBC Pierre
From the Man Booker Prize-winning author of Vernon God Little comes a humane, deeply empathetic starburst of a satire; the most moving and entertaining exaggeration of the fearful nightmare of trying to raise a kid now. It’s a big bad world out there in twenty-first century Dopamine City. Modern life has taken its toll on all Lonnie…
Shell Life on the Seashore
Illustrations by Amanda Dilworth taken from Shell Life on the Seashore by Philip Street, first published in 1962 and reissued in August 2019 with a fold-out jacket and a new introduction by Philip Hoare. Shells not shown to scale 1 Common limpet (Patella vulgata) 2 Blue-rayed limpet (Patella pellucida) 3 Keyhole limpet (Diodora graeca) 4…
Sue Prideaux wins the 2019 Hawthornden Prize for Literature
I Am Dynamite!: A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche by Sue Prideaux has been awarded the 2019 Hawthornden Prize for Literature. Dame Hermione Lee, the head judge, said ‘the Hawthornden Prize judges all agreed that (in a very strong year for the prize) this magnificent biography of a very strange and difficult subject is wonderfully well-written, lucid…
The Heartland by Nathan Filer
In 2013 former psychiatric nurse Nathan Filer won the Costa Book of the Year award for his debut novel The Shock of the Fall, described by Jo Brand as ‘one of the best books about mental illness.’ Now he has followed that up with a moving and clear-eyed non-fiction book on schizophrenia, that most misunderstood…
The Wall by John Lanchester – read the first chapter
Here’s the first chapter of John Lanchester’s new novel The Wall. His last was the international bestseller Capital, and like that book The Wall takes its cue from pressing issues of the day. Kavanagh begins his life patrolling the Wall. If he’s lucky, if nothing goes wrong, he only has two years of this,…
Pebble spotting with The Pebbles on the Beach
KEY TO IMAGES: 1 Ovoid pebble of grey granite 2 Grey granite with one surface cut and polished 3 Pebble of schist with one surface cut and polished. The laminations are more clearly seen on an uncut surface 4 Flattened ovoid pebble of crystalline limestone [unpolished] 5 Fragment of whitish chert. Its angularities show that…
6 pairs of Golden Tickets to be won to see a recording of QI!
To celebrate the forthcoming publication of the latest – and biggest – QI Fact book, 2,024 QI Facts to Stop You in Your Tracks, we are offering six lucky pairs of people the chance to see a recording of an episode of the next series of QI being recorded at a studio in London. To…
William Atkins vs the desert
This is an extract from William Atkins’ book The Immeasurable World: Journeys in Desert Places, taken from the chapter covering his trip to the Burning Man festival in the Black Rock Desert. John C. Frémont had no desire to settle the desert, nor any expectation that it might be made to bloom as the boosters…
Read an extract from Patient X by David Peace
David Peace’s new novel, Patient X: The Case-Book of Ryunosuke Akutagawa, follows the life story of the great Japanese writer. Here’s an extract on Akutagawa’s growing obsession with books. House of Books . . . Book after book, book by book, pile by pile, shelf by shelf, screen by screen and wall by wall, you…
