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…
Cosey Fanni Tutti talks Art Sex Music
Industrial music pioneer and performance artist Cosey Fanni Tutti has written her autobiography. Art Sex Music is the story of a musician who, as a founding member of the avant-garde group Throbbing Gristle and electronic pioneers Chris & Cosey, has consistently challenged the boundaries of music over the past four decades. It is the account…
Thomasina Miers cooks crispy chicken thighs
Here’s two delicious recipes taken from Thomasina Miers’ new book, Home Cook. In it she cooks her favourite recipes, things she cooks at home for her family, from everyday breakfasts to special feasts. This first video shows her cooking Crispy Chicken Thighs. And the next shows the recipe for Poached Eggs with Melted Leeks and…
Points that Make a Line: Mapping Ireland’s Border by Garrett Carr
The Rule of the Land is about reading the power dynamics in a landscape. To write the book I explored Ireland’s border, but I like to think that I uncovered things relevant to frontiers everywhere. Growing up near the border may explain my fascination with what happens where a country ends, and what springs up…
Fiction’s greatest detective duos – chosen by Stav Sherez
Stav Sherez, author of the Carrigan and Miller crime series, has chosen his five favourite literary crime duos. His new novel, The Intrusions, is out on 2nd February 2017, which has been described by Ian Rankin as ‘A Silence of the Lambs for the internet age’. The classic image of the detective is that of a solitary figure silhouetted…
A Year of Crisis
As 2016 draws to a close, world leaders, newspaper commentators, and ordinary citizens are struggling to make sense of what has been, by any reckoning, an extraordinary year. From the vote for Brexit to the election of Donald J. Trump, and from the attempted coup in Turkey to the bloody end to the siege of…
Exploring the dark corners of the Georgian age, by Stephen Taylor
I knew when I decided to write a biography of Lady Anne Barnard that the materials were rich. Her years at the Cape of Good Hope from 1798 established her as one of those indomitable women travellers of the early empire, a free spirit who mixed as easily with indigenous Africans as with aristocratic proconsuls…
New Alan Bennett Diaries for Autumn 2016
Faber & Faber and Profile Books are delighted to announce the joint acquisition of Alan Bennett’s Keeping On Keeping On, his diaries from 2005 to 2015. Alan Bennett’s third collection of prose follows in the footsteps of the phenomenally successful Writing Home and Untold Stories, each published ten years apart. This latest collection contains Bennett’s…
The home front during the Napoleonic Wars, by Jenny Uglow
‘Our Boy Tim Tooley who was supposed to have been gone to bed was not to be found … It is thought he is gone to Norwich to enlist himself, as his Head has long run on a Soldiers Life.’ James Woodforde, Norfolk, 1793 We know the thrilling, terrible stories of the battles of the…
Mass Observation: A Way of Life, by Joe Moran
What was a ‘Mass Observer’, and what did they do? Cultural historian Joe Moran here provides background to the origins of the Mass Observation Archive, and explains the link between everyday life in Britain in the early part of the twentieth century, and life on a remote Western Pacific island … The Mass Observation project…
