Books published by Faber & Faber

Listen, girls, if we stick together there's no ways we'll even get to the second round...Young, lost and out of control, a bunch of Catholic schoolgirls go wild for a day in the big city, the singing competition a mere obstacle in the way of sex, sambuca and a night back home with the submarine crew in Mantrap.Funny, sad and raucously rude, Lee Hall's musical play Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour, adapted from Alan Warner's novel The Sopranos, premiered at the Traverse Theatre in August 2015, in a production by the National Theatre of Scotland and Live Theatre.

A wonderful meditation on the English landscape in wet weather by the acclaimed novelist and nature writer, Melissa Harrison.Whenever rain falls, our countryside changes. Fields, farms, hills and hedgerows appear altered, the wildlife behaves differently, and over time the terrain itself is transformed.In Rain, Melissa Harrison explores our relationship with the weather as she follows the course of four rain showers, in four seasons, across Wicken Fen, Shropshire, the Darent Valley and Dartmoor. Blending these expeditions with reading, research, memory and imagination, she reveals how rain is not just an essential element of the world around us, but a key part of our own identity too.

One of the funniest writers of his generation, Michael Frayn has been writing humorous newspaper columns since 1959, principally for the "e;Guardian"e; and "e;Observer"e;, and originally came to prominence as the thrice weekly purveyor of these short, surreal, razor-sharp explorations of human foibles, sex, politics, manners, and the events of the day. This volume brings together 110 of his finest and funniest pieces from over the years, selected and introduced by Michael Frayn himself, and is an unmissable treat for the many fans of his unique comic voice, as well as a revelation for fans of the award-winning literary novels and plays of his later career.

I'm just as good as bloody Pierrepoint.In his small pub in Oldham, Harry is something of a local celebrity. But what's the second-best hangman in England to do on the day they've abolished hanging? Amongst the cub reporters and sycophantic pub regulars, dying to hear Harry's reaction to the news, a peculiar stranger lurks, with a very different motive for his visit.Don't worry. I may have my quirks but I'm not an animal. Or am I? One for the courts to discuss.Martin McDonagh's Hangmen premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in September 2015.

This third richly varied collection of plays by Marina Carr was published to coincide with the Royal Shakespeare Company's premiere of Hecuba at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, in September 2015.Sixteen Possible Glimpses imagines sixteen fleeting moments in Anton Chekhov's short life and work. Phaedra Backwards retells the Phaedra myth to discover what shaped her. The Map of Argentina offers a meditation on love and what happens when it is denied, or pursued and hunted down. Hecuba was written in reaction to the bad press this Trojan queen receives, and reimagines how she may have suffered and reacted. Indigo is a dark and passionate romance amongst fairies, demons, ghouls and every sort of fantastic creature out of folklore and myth.

Billy Bragg is one of Britain's most distinctive and accomplished songwriters, whose work has articulated the passions, both personal and political, of Britain during the past five decades. A Lover Sings contains over seventy of his best-known lyrics, selected and annotated by the author.'Sexuality', 'A New England', 'Levi Stubbs' Tears' - these are unadorned, poetic songs that skilfully interweave everyday observation with much broader concerns: of fairness and outrage, of generosity and love. A Lover Sings reveals a unique sensibility: principled and proudly of the Left, funny, forthright and tender. It is a remarkable collection.

'Highly addictive.' KARIN SLAUGHTER'A major talent.' HARLAN COBEN'Packed with plot, The Ex rocks.' New York Journal of Books'Keeps you guessing right to the very end. I loved it.' BECKY MASTERMAN, author of Fear the DarknessDID HE, OR DIDN'T HE?Olivia Randall is one of New York City's best criminal defence lawyers. When she gets a phone call informing her that her former fiancee has been arrested for a triple homicide there is no doubt in her mind as to his innocence. The only question is who would go to such great lengths to frame him - and why?For Olivia, representing Jack is a way to make up for past regrets, and the hurt she caused him, but as the evidence against him mounts, she is forced to confront her doubts.

Marceline Loridan-Ivens was just fifteen when she was arrested by the Vichy government's militia, along with her father. He prepared her for the worst, telling her that he would not return. They were soon separated. The three kilometres between her father in Auschwitz and herself in Birkenau were an insurmountable distance, and yet he managed to send her a small note via an electrician in the camp - a sign of life.In But You Did Not Come Back, Marceline writes a letter to the father she would never know as an adult, to the man whose death enveloped her whole life. Her testimony is a haunting and challenging reminder of one of the worst crimes humanity has ever seen, and an affecting personal story of a woman whose life was shattered and never totally rebuilt.

A handsome new tutor brings reckless, romantic desire to an eccentric household. Over three days one summer the young and the old will learn lessons in love: first love and forbidden love, maternal love and platonic love, ridiculous love and last love. The love left unsaid and the love which must out.Ivan Turgenev's passionate, moving comedy, A Month in the Country, has been a source of inspiration for films, a ballet and the plays of Chekhov. Patrick Marber's Three Days in the Country premiered at the National Theatre, London, in June 2015 in association with Sonia Friedman Productions.

West Virginia: A church congregation vanishes in mysterious circumstances, only to be found dead some miles away. The evidence on the ground appears to indicate a ritual killing and the work of demonic forces.Enter Jessica Blackwood, the FBI's specialist in all things unusual. A former illusionist, Jessica's talent and experience enable her to see what others cannot, as she proved in the infamous 'Warlock' case. Maybe now, once again, the devil will be in the details.Following the trail from West Virginia to Mexico and Miami, Jessica uncovers a deadly conspiracy that might lead all the way to the Vatican itself. Only with her unique understanding of the powers of deception can they hope to stop a ruthless killer from exacting a revenge that's been thirty years in the planning . . .

Meet Jessica Blackwood, FBI Agent and ex-illusionist. Called in because of her past to offer expertise on the mysterious 'Warlock' case, Jessica must put all her unique knowledge to the test as they try to catch a ruthless killer. Needing to solve the unsolvable, and with the clock ticking, they're banking on her being the only one able to see beyond the Warlock's illusions. The first in a brilliant new series, Angel Killer will have you feverishly turning the pages, and in Jessica Blackwood, Mayne has created a complex, sassy and unforgettable new heroine. 'Professional illusionist Mayne introduces a fresh angle to serial-killer hunting.' Booklist'Mayne has created an unbelievably unforgettable book! 5 Stars!' Suspense Magazine

Two couples. Friendship, suspicion, deceit. And the truth. Florian Zeller's The Truth, in the English translation by Christopher Hampton, premiered at The Chocolate Factory, London, in association with Theatre Royal Bath. It follows the phenomenal success of The Father (Theatre Royal Bath, Tricycle, London and West End) and The Mother (Theatre Royal Bath, Tricycle, London), both by Florian Zeller and translated by Christopher Hampton.

When twenty-two-year-old Gerty Freely travels to Russia to work as a governess in early 1914, she has no idea of the vast political upheavals ahead, nor how completely her fate will be shaped by them. Yet as her intimacy with the charismatic inventor, Nikita Slavkin, deepens, she's inspired by his belief in a future free of bourgeois clutter, alight with creativity and sleek as a machine.In 1917, revolution sweeps away the Moscow Gerty knew. The middle classes - and their governesses - are fleeing the country, but she stays, throwing herself into an experiment in communal living led by Slavkin. In the white-washed modernist rooms of the commune the members may be cold and hungry, but their overwhelming feeling is of exhilaration. They abolish private property and hand over everything, even their clothes, to the collective; they swear celibacy for the cause.Yet the chaos and violence of the outside world cannot be withstood for ever. Nikita Slavkin's sudden disappearance inspires the Soviet cult of the Vanishing Futurist, the scientist who sacrificed himself for the Communist ideal. Gerty, alone and vulnerable, must now discover where that ideal will ultimately lead.Strikingly vivid, this debut novel by award-winning writer Charlotte Hobson pierces the heart with a story of fleeting, but infinite possibility.

In a momentous publication, Seamus Heaney's translation of Book VI of the Aeneid, Virgil's epic poem composed sometime between 29 and 19 BC, follows the hero, Aeneas, on his descent into the underworld. In Stepping Stones, a book of interviews conducted by Dennis O'Driscoll, Heaney acknowledged the importance of the poem to his writing, noting that 'there's one Virgilian journey that has indeed been a constant presence, and that is Aeneas's venture into the underworld. The motifs in Book VI have been in my head for years - the golden bough, Charon's barge, the quest to meet the shade of the father.'In this new translation, Heaney employs the same deft handling of the original combined with the immediacy of language and flawless poetic voice as was on show in his translation of Beowulf, a reimagining which, in the words of Bernard O'Donoghue, brought the ancient poem back to life in 'a miraculous mix of the poem's original spirit and Heaney's voice'.

Everyman is successful, popular and riding high when Death comes calling. Forced to abandon the life he has built, he embarks on a last, frantic search to recruit a friend, anyone, to speak in his defence. But Death is close behind, and time is running out.One of the great primal, spiritual myths, Everyman asks whether it is only in death that we can understand our lives. A cornerstone of English drama since the 15th century, this new adaptation by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy was presented at the National Theatre, London, in April 2015.

First published in 1978, The Victims of Love was the last in a quartet of novels by Colin Spencer concerning the Simpson family and their charged relationships across the generations. Now we are in the 1960s, as Sundy Simpson attempts a reclusive existence as a single mother and Matthew struggles with the aftermath of a superficially civilised divorce and the continued rage of passion within.In a new preface Colin Spencer recalls how he drew inspiration from his own life and the lives of others, intending 'to be as honest to my experience as I can be, to be ruthless in my vision of others as I have been to myself'.'Affecting, hilarious, and grave . . . [the Generation Quartet] is a tapestry of unforgettable characters in all their seaminess and sadness, their idealism and desires. It is a delight to meet them again.' Sir Huw Weldon

The Importance of Music to Girls tells the story of the adventures that music leads us into - getting drunk, falling in love, cutting our hair, wanting to change the world - as well as the darker side of the adolescent years: loneliness, bullying, getting arrested. Lavinia Greenlaw remembers the music that inspired and accompanied her, and compelled her generation. From fancying Donny Osmond, to wanting to be Ian Curtis, this is a razor-sharp memoir, filtered through the medium of music.

First published in 1970, Lovers in War was the third of a quartet of novels by Colin Spencer concerning the Simpson family. This volume finds brother and sister Matthew and Sundy Simpson suffering fresh emotional turmoil. Sundy has divorced her philandering husband, Reg, and is living with Jamey Best-David, whose Catholic wife will not grant him a divorce. Matthew, resisting the homosexual world to which he feels drawn, has married his boyhood sweetheart, Jane. But when Reg resurfaces, both Matthew and Sundy succumb again to his incorrigible charm.This Faber Finds edition includes a new preface by Colin Spencer wherein he reflects on 'how the ethics of loving, its agonies and joys, are so unchanged'.

'A variation on the theme of The Turn of the Screw in the manner of Graham Greene with an olive from The Cocktail Party and a dash of Dashiell Hammett.' Cyril ConnollyFirst published in 1961, The Scarlet Boy saw the versatile Arthur Calder-Marshall venturing into gothic terrain with a study in the paranormal. Historian George Grantley agrees to find a property for his school-friend Kit Everness, now a successful QC, in Grantley's home town of Wilchester. Grantley's eye falls on a place dear to him in childhood: Anglesey House, where his boyhood companion Charles Scarlet lived with his glamorous mother, Helen. But Charles committed suicide there, and some say the house is haunted. Grantley and Everness are undeterred; however, they will come to find their rational views tested, and the lives of their loved ones endangered.

Tea's cold, lunch is late and the great Professor has turned out to be a fraud - for Uncle Vanya, life has gone wonky, it's gone to hell.Only one thing can save him - a glamorous woman's love. But she's not interested either. And what's worse, she's married to the Professor.Samuel Adamson new version of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya - a dark and funny exploration of cross-purposed love, bitter jealousy and a dysfunctional family - opened at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, in February 2015.

Winner of the Waverton Good Read Award 2017Shortlisted for the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award 2017Shortlisted for the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award 2017Imagine if your whole life changed in the blink of an eye . . . Captain Tom Barnes is leading British troops into a war zone when he is gravely injured by an exploding IED. This devastating moment and the transformative months that follow are narrated here by forty-five objects, telling one unforgettable story.

Spanning the 1950s to the 70s, the plays capture the rebellious mood of a post-war generation growing up to a backdrop of James Dean, Elvis, sharp-suited glamour, hope and despair.John Byrne takes the slab room he worked in and makes it pure theatre: the scams, the dreams, the aloof but gorgeous girl, the despair of life back home, the obligatory tormenting of the office 'weed', and the mandatory boy chat and pranks all help the day to pass. Phil and Spanky explode onto the stage in a classic vaudeville double-act.Now considered one of Scotland's defining literary works of the twentieth century, the Slab Boys Trilogy premiered at the Traverse back in the late 1970s and early 80s taking Scotland, then Britain, and then Broadway quickly by storm.

Alan Ayckbourn's play is about a very ordinary teenager called Lucy. With her father glued to the cowboys on the telly, her mother preoccupied with neighbourly gossip and her brother enclosed in his ear-phones, no one wants to know about her place in the school swimming team. So Lucy revives her childhood fantasy friend, Zara, setting a place for her at the very ordinary tea table. This time Zara materializes, bringing with her an idealized father and brother, and showing Lucy how to make her real family vanish. The moral of this cautionary tale is carefully spelt out - that when you get what you want it's not what you wanted - as Lucy's dream family turns out to be a nightmare. The play is supposedly for children of seven upwards, but there's a message here for parents, too, about listening to kids.

Little Sister Death is the stunning 'lost' horror novel of the late William Gay. Inspired by the famous 19th Century Bell Witch haunting of Tennessee, it follows the unravelling life of David Binder, a writer who moves his young family to a haunted farmstead to try and find inspiration for his faltering work... Beautifully written and structured, Little Sister Death is a loving and faithful addition to the field of classic horror writing, eschewing any notions of irony or post-modern tricks as it aims, instead, straight for your soul.

First published in 1967, The Tyranny of Love was the second in a quartet of novels by Colin Spencer concerning the Simpson family. At the forefront of this story is Matthew, only son of Eddy and Hester Simpson. He loathes his lecherous father and wants to avenge his mother's misery. He begins an obsessive, sexless relationship with Jane, the girl next door, but his driving passion tends in another direction, and threatens to cause chaos.This edition of the novel includes a new preface by Colin Spencer.'[The novel] has a passionate feeling for the sensuous world; the characters live at full blast, a family driven by dark and uncontrollable forces, but always flesh and blood people.' London Illustrated News

'A fast-driven, maturely manipulated political thriller . . . Europe is at war - a Fascist coup is imminent as arms are exchanged for Mexican oil.' KirkusWhen newspaperman Henry Van Dyle is assassinated in Mexico City, agency stringer Jimmy Lamson, who was having an affair with Van Dyle's wife, is driven to investigate the mystery of his death. The clues point to a sinister cabal manipulating politics - and orchestrating Nazi interests - in Mexico City. But who is 'Senor Tom', the codenamed personage identified in Van Dyle's notebooks as the man pulling the strings?Arthur Calder-Marshall lived in Mexico before the outbreak of war and drew on his experiences to lend fidelity to this pacey, suspenseful, superbly written novel, first published in 1941, which Orson Welles tried to adapt for the cinema before making Citizen Kane.

This new anthology of poems, favourites from the nation's longest-running and best-loved request programme for verse, moves with the seasons, following the turning year from John Clare's 'pale splendour of the winter sun' to John Keats's 'Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness', by way of Larkin's 'young-leafed June' and Gerard Manley Hopkins' 'glassy peartree leaves and blooms' when 'Nothing is so beautiful as Spring'. As the year changes, so we change with it. Since time out of mind our daily lives have been shaped and directed by the seasons, and it is here that we find poems about harvest and hardship, growth and new life, the warmth of the life-giving sun, Christmas and the closing of the year. Poetry Please: Seasonal Poems is a vital and generous gathering to treasure.

Cruel and Tender'A mordantly knowing modernisation of Sophocles's Trachiniae... . The approach here manages to be at once lethally level and capable of surges of anguished feeling... Highly recommended.' IndependentFewer Emergencies'A triptych of vicious modern fairy tales that brings the nightmare right back and stabs you through the soul.'GuardianThe City'Although this is the most disquieting play in London, there is a curious exhilaration about both the performance and Crimp's confrontation with our perpetual unease.' GuardianDefinitely the Bahamas'A summation of a life lived vicariously, at the margins of other lives, between suffocating suburban walls; and the play is as unflinching as it is unnerving.' The TimesPlay House'Play House concerns the volatility and vulnerability of love, as a young couple, Simon and Katrina set up home... Unusually for Crimp, the play both begins and ends with moving declarations of love. Suddenly this usually chilly dramatist seems unexpectedly blessed with a warm heart.' Daily TelegraphIn the Republic of Happiness'Crimp goes so far as to call it "e;an entertainment in three parts,"e; and it rocks along like a dystopian vaudeville... The actors are imprisoned and liberated at once, their strange between-worlds condition a source of joy, intemperateness and above all a care for our diversion... My favourite play of the year.'What's on Stage

'I want to give my country a model of perfection... Nothing less. My country needs cheering up. I'm the man to do it.'Nobody can doubt John Christie's passion nor his formidable will: his wooing of his opera singer wife has been marked by a determination befitting a man who won the Military Cross at the Battle of Loos. Now, in 1934, this Etonian science teacher's admiration for the works of Wagner has led him to embark on an ambitious project: the construction of an Opera House on his estate in Sussex.But such is the scale of the enterprise that passion alone may not be enough. It's only when a famous violinist is delayed by fog overnight in Eastbourne that Christie hears word of a group of refugees for whom life in Germany is becoming impossible. Perhaps they can deliver Christie's vision of the sublime - assuming they're willing to cast his wife in the lead.David Hare's new play is the story of an intense love affair between some unlikely bedfellows, and of the unrelenting search for artistic excellence in the face of searing scrutiny, sacrifice and war.The Moderate Soprano premieres at Hampstead Theatre, London, in October 2015.

This phenomenal novel is the first in a trilogy packed with shooting contests, train robberies, festivals under the stars, powerful Djinni magic and an electrifying love story."e;Tell me that and we'll go. Right now. Save ourselves and leave this place to burn. Tell me that's how you want your story to go and we'll write it straight across the sand."e;Dustwalk is Amani's home. The desert sand is in her bones. But she wants to escape. More than a want. A need. Then a foreigner with no name turns up to save her life, and with him the chance to run. But to where? The desert plains are full of danger. Sand and blood are swirling, and the Sultan's enemies are on the rise.