WTSR Sebastian Faulks (1)

Reading lists

Where to start reading Sebastian Faulks

With the dawn of a new millennium about to break, the Nineties was a strange, floating decade of positivity, hope and something called the World Wide Web. 

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Books that defined the 1990s

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Features

The book lover’s guide to… Paris

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Interviews

An interview with Sebastian Faulks

A Life in Progress

Fires Which Burned Brightly

Sebastian Faulks is one of our finest living authors, a writer whose work has often explored the fragility of human sanity and how easily it can unravel . . . A wise and heartfelt piece of writing

Intriguing, fascinating and enlightening . . . filled with gratitude and charm, but also full of evidence of the endless curiosity that is every great novelist’s weapon of choice

A wonderful portrait of an age, and of a writer

RORY STEWART, author of Politics on the Edge

DAVID KYNASTON, author of A Northern Wind

Shot through with the kind of depth and detail that can only come from a masterful writer finally turning his pen to his own life. Fresh, wise and finely-wrought

As charming and funny in schoolboy episodes as he is thought-provoking in the darker environs of mental health, Sebastian Faulks is always resonant, civilised and sane

Entertaining . . . It ends with a beautiful tribute to his father, a modest, genuine war hero

Faulks is the benchmark of living novelists, the best of that generation, and still burning brightly

From schooldays and Fleet Street to the publication of Birdsong and beyond, Faulks reflects on the experiences that shaped him as a writer in this warm and insightful memoir. Rich in literary and cultural history, it also offers a fascinating portrait of post-war Britain.

Sebastian Faulks has written nineteen books, of which A Week in December and The Fatal Englishman were number one in the Sunday Times bestseller lists. He is best known for Birdsong, part of his French trilogy, and Human Traces, the first in an ongoing Austrian trilogy. Before becoming a full-time writer, he worked as a journalist on national papers. He has also written screenplays and has appeared in small roles on stage. He lives in London.

'A wise and heartfelt piece of writing' THE TIMES 
 
'Witty' INDEPENDENT 
 
'Wry and reflective . . . a soulful look at a life in words' i PAPER 
 
‘A wonderful portrait of an age, and of a writer’ RORY STEWART, author of Politics on the Edge 
 
‘Utterly fascinating’ DAVID KYNASTON, author of A Northern Wind 
 
'Shot through with the kind of depth and detail that can only come from a masterful writer finally turning his pen to his own life. Fresh, wise and finely-wrought' ALICE WINN, author of In Memoriam 
 
‘As charming and funny in schoolboy episodes as he is thought-provoking in the darker environs of mental health, Sebastian Faulks is always resonant, civilised and sane’ MARK KNOPFLER 
 
*** 
 
In Fires Which Burned Brightly, Faulks, a reluctant memoirist, offers readers a series of detailed snapshots from a life in progress. They include a post-war rural childhood – ‘cold mutton and wet washing on a rack over the range’ – the booze-sodden heyday of Fleet Street and a career as one of the country’s most acclaimed novelists. 
 
There are not one, but two daring escapes from boarding school; the delirium of a jetlagged American book tour; the writing of Birdsong in his brother’s house in 1992; and memorable trips across the channel to France. Politics, psychiatry and frustrated ventures into the world of entertainment are analysed with patience and rueful humour. 
 
The book is driven by a desire ‘to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.’ It ends with a tribute to Faulks’s parents and a sense of how his own generation was shaped by the disruptive power of war and its aftermath. 
 
Sharply perceptive and alive with a generous wit, Fires Which Burned Brightly is a work of subtle yet profound intelligence and warmth. 
 
PRAISE FOR SEBASTIAN FAULKS 
 
'Faulks writes with great emotional authority' SUNDAY TIMES 
 
'A prodigiously talented writer' NEW YORK TIMES 
 
'Faulks is beyond doubt a master' FINANCIAL TIMES 
 
'The most impressive novelist of his generation' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

Snow Country

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
'Faulks's most poignant love story yet' ANTONY BEEVOR 
 
1914: Aspiring journalist Anton arrives in Vienna where he meets Delphine, a woman of deep secrets. Anton is entranced by the light of first love, until his country declares war on hers. 
 
1927: For Lena, life in a small town has been harsh and cold. When her love affair with a young lawyer crumbles, she leaves to take a post at a remote snow-capped sanatorium. 
 
1933: Anton is sent to write about the same clinic, the mysterious Schloss Seeblick. In this place, on the banks of a silvery lake where the roots of human suffering are laid bare, two people will see each other as if for the first time. 
 
&lsquo;A magnificent, moving novel&rsquo; INDEPENDENT 
 
&lsquo;Faulks on his best form&rsquo; TELEGRAPH

Human Traces

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
'Shocking and enlightening... touching and affecting' DAILY MAIL 
 
'A masterpiece . . . one of the great novels of this or any other century' INDEPENDENT 
 
As young boys, both Jacques Rebière and Thomas Midwinter become fascinated with trying to understand the human mind. As psychiatrists, their quest takes them from the squalor of the Victorian lunatic asylum to the crowded lecture halls of the renowned Professor Charcot in Paris; from the heights of the Sierra Madre in California to the plains of unexplored Africa. 
 
As the concerns of the old century fade and the First World War divides Europe, the two men's volatile relationship develops and changes, but is always tempered by one exceptional woman; Thomas's sister Sonia. 
 
'Structurally intricate, yet intensely focused on the lives of individuals . . . replete with interesting ideas and . . . exceptionally fine writing' OBSERVER 
 
'A bold and remarkable work of imagination . . . to write so well for so many pages is an amazing feat of intellectual athleticism' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 
 
 
Sebastian Faulks, Sunday Times bestseller, September 2023

The Seventh Son

This is a genuinely thought-provoking piece of fiction. You could devour it in a day and be wholly transported into the near future, then set it back down, dazed but enlightened, in the present day where you will see the world anew in all its wonders and frailties

A stunning novel: profoundly moving, deeply unsettling, thought-provoking and prescient but also a wonderful and life-affirming love story too

Once I had started I literally could not stop. It really is his greatest novel yet, and of course beautifully written in that wonderful, understated style

Faulks is one of the most original and compelling writers in the world. This enthralling novel is right up there among his very finest work

A completely fascinating and extraordinary novel. A profound and moving examination of our complex human nature

A beautifully written novel. On the one hand you have love, kindness, responsibility; on the other monstrous arrogance and indifference to consequences

Brilliant, original and unputdownable. An absolute cracker

This elegant near-future novel about a daring scientific experiment explores the evolution of consciousness&hellip; Faulks is an enviably graceful and economical writer. The early chapters of the book rip along with clarity and elegance. He conjures up the various worlds, brings the central characters vividly to life and keeps the story moving intriguingly forward

A high-concept page-turner&hellip; Pitched somewhere between Michael Crichton and Ian McEwan, it&rsquo;s a timely meditation on the whims of rich tycoon

Sebastian Faulks&rsquo;s latest novel is a tender, haunting exploration of the power of technology to alter our understanding of what it means to be human.

Engaging and thought-provoking &hellip; The Seventh Son straddles two worlds, encompassing the distant past as well as the future. In so doing, Faulks asks difficult questions about who and what we are, and whether we could ever justifiably alter our genes to remove the worst of our defects

Fabulously compelling&hellip; a provocative, poignant and disturbing examination of what it is to be human&hellip; Who says a novel of ideas can&rsquo;t be as thrilling as a holiday beach read? The Birdsong author&rsquo;s novels invariably examine big, bold ideas yet are beautifully told with a gossamer light touch. The Seventh Son is no exception

A resonant hint of Frankenstein&rsquo;s wretched monster about Seth who, functional, capable and literate as he is, stands at the book&rsquo;s emotional centre, desperate for a companionship he can never find

Cutting-edge science and big, meaty ideas aside, it’s the minute details of everyday life and the bursting-from-the-page characters that make this thought-provoking novel come alive

Sebastian Faulks has long been a novelist much occupied with ideas, especially scientific and medical ones, while contriving to marry this to a strong plot and credible characters . . . gripping, horribly persuasive and sad

'Genuinely thought-provoking&rsquo; THE TIMES 
 
'Extraordinary' WILLIAM BOYD 
 
&lsquo;Faulks is an enviably graceful and economical writer&rsquo; GUARDIAN 
A CHILD WILL BE BORN WHO WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING 
 
Tech billionaire Lukas Parn has an ambitious plan. Behind the doors of the IVF clinic in his London institute, a daring switch is made. Young academic Talissa Adam believes she is simply carrying a child for a grateful family, but the baby inside her is different from any living human. The boy, Seth, grows up unaware, though his parents not that he&rsquo;s different: he can&rsquo;t make plans, is unaware of danger and seems to have at least one extra sense. But as Seth becomes a man, the truth about him is revealed and the world starts to hunt him down.&lsquo; [An] unsettling book from one of our most popular novelists; it&rsquo;s also one of his best&rsquo; FINANCIAL TIMES 
 
&lsquo;His greatest novel yet' ANTONY BEEVOR 
 
'Profoundly moving . . . a wonderful and life-affirming love story' JAMES HOLLAND 
 
'Original and enthralling' PETER JAMES

A Possible Life

Most easily appreciated as a series of compelling short stories. Poignant, powerful and tender, they are lined by the pain and passion, hope and hardship, accident and design which make up the drama of an individual life

'Profound . . . Faulks evokes a deep compassion' OBSERVER 
'Does what a good novel should - it unsettles, it moves, and it forces us to question who we are' SUNDAY TIMES 
'A delight . . . moving and exciting' DAILY TELEGRAPH 
 
Five lives overlap across two centuries. School teacher Geoffrey&rsquo;s war takes him to the brink of sanity; Billy&rsquo;s fortitude lifts him from the Victorian slums in London; Elena and Jeanne interrogate the notion of the soul, from opposite points of view, a century apart. And for Anya, a young American singer-songwriter, only her producer Jack can understand the depths of their bond as art and life collide. 
 
In a symphony of fiction, A Possible Life defies the boundaries of the novel, to explore the deepest questions of how we are connected to one another. 
 
 
'A Possible Life is more than the sum of its parts . . . the stories acquire power as resonances between them accrete. Only at the end do you realise you've been won over by their quiet, glinting virtuosity' THE TIMES

Where My Heart Used to Beat

&lsquo;A masterpiece&rsquo; SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 
&lsquo;Ambitious, demanding and profoundly melancholy&rsquo; GUARDIAN 
 
Dr. Robert Hendricks has just received a mysterious invitation. Psychiatrist Alexander Pereira has asked him to stay at his villa on a French island. But what starts out as an intellectual exchange soon becomes a cat and mouse game that brings to the surface a history of war and a lost love that Hendricks had thought buried. 
 
A gripping exploration of the mysteries of memory, Where My Heart Used to Beat is a stunning and thrilling novel of past lives and the indelible scars of love. 
 
&lsquo;An intelligent and moving examination of the traumas of war&rsquo; SCOTSMAN 
&lsquo;Will leave you gulping back sobs&rsquo; OBSERVER

Paris Echo

Superb... weaves winningly between the present and the second world war, between Tangiers and Paris.

‘[Paris Echo is] brimming with Faulks’s deep affection for Paris. His outsider’s interest in quirky street names and quaint corners transports his readers there too. And in the end, the book is powered by his ambition to evoke that place, its ghostliness, those spectres of history, lurking around every beautiful avenue

A brilliantly plotted and occasionally hallucinatory novel, in  which the author's genius for literary ventriloquism is shown off to startling effect.

Paris Echo doesn’t disappoint… Faulks is doing what he does best, marrying careful historical research with a good ear for dialogue

[An] exquisite book... a deeply affecting, wholly unsolemn treatment of some of the 20th century's darkest moments.

The prowess of his storytelling makes him a graceful guide through "the great world of the past"... Cunningly crafted, Faulks's fictional bridge between the French past and present has its sentimental side.

There is humour and humanity in this bold, perceptive novel.

Both thoughtful and thought-provoking with memorable characters and a profound sense of the past in the present

Here is Paris in all its beauty and squalor, its blood-stained history and its ability to instil in its lover a sense of the true sweetness of life. So this intelligent, moving, often disturbing novel is also really a love letter to Paris and indeed to France.

There is much to learn from Paris Echo about the city’s complex identity, and about the way we view the past.

Paris Echo tackles its subjects – war, identity, colonial legacies – with the skill and emotional power that have delighted his readers for three decades

Faulks is a fine descriptive writer and evokes Paris splendidly

Paris Echo is an enjoyable and highly readable novel. Faulks has an easy-going style and he draws you seemingly without effort into the world he creates. He has a knowing humour too…In part the novel is a love letter to Paris, but it is also the latest product of Faulk’s long-standing and fascinating engagement with the devastating events of the 20th century.

This intelligent, moving, often disturbing novel is also really a love letter to Paris – and, indeed, to France

Faulks excels at creating well-rounded characters.

An intriguing guide to the many layers of Parisien life.

Master storytelling... [An] intriguing and moving story that shows how the future is shaped by the past.

‘Paris Echo is an enjoyable and highly readable novel. Faulks has an easy-going style and he draws you seemingly without effort into the world he creates. He has a knowing humour too…In part the novel is a love letter to Paris, but it is also the latest product of Faulk’s long-standing and fascinating engagement with the devastating events of the 20th century.’

A lovely novel by a writer who lives and breathes France

Faulks masterfully reminds readers of the city’s indecipherable mystique and bottomless artistic generosity

Another terrific, intelligent read from Faulks

'Superb' OBSERVER 
'Cunningly crafted' FINANCIAL TIMES 
'Faulks is doing what he does best&rsquo; SUNDAY TIMES 
 
In the depths of the archive, Hannah dances with the ghosts of Vichy France, lost in testimony and a desire to hear the voices of the past. Back in her apartment, Moroccan teenager Tariq crashes on her sofa, consumed by his search for the mother he barely knew. Their excavations will unearth rich histories that will teach them both just how much the future is worth fighting for. 
 
Paris Echo is a propulsive and haunting novel of empire and identity, told with biting wit and tenderness, which exposes the shadows of the city of lights. 
 
&lsquo;[Paris Echo] is brimming with Faulks&rsquo;s deep affection for Paris . . . and ambition to evoke that place, its ghostliness, those spectres of history, lurking around every beautiful avenue&rsquo; GUARDIAN

On Green Dolphin Street

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
'Compelling . . . Faulks has become an international sensation' GUARDIAN 
'Performs like an elegant melody' OBSERVER 
'Tense and affecting . . . A modern epic' SPECTATOR 
 
Life at the British Embassy in Washington in 1959 is awash with parties, martinis, jazz, and for Mary van der Linden, the kind of happiness she has always dreamt of. With her diplomat husband Charlie busy and the children off at boarding school, she feels listless until news reporter Frank Renzo enters their lives. And when Frank and Mary begin a torrid affair, their passion will force an impossible decision. 
 
Set between Washington, New York and Moscow, On Green Dolphin Street, is a masterful exploration of Cold War chaos, and devastating love.

Engleby

[A] book that made me realise there are fewer boundaries in fiction than I'd believed

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
'Vivid . . . engagingly lucid and disarmingly funny' GUARDIAN 
'Beautifully done . . . witty and poignant' THE TIMES 
'Brilliant' OBSERVER 
 
Welcome to Mike Engleby's world. Deep in the hallowed halls of an esteemed English university, Mike is one of the only working-class boys, amongst the privileged masses. He's also different, starkly so, but able to observe it all. But observation soon tips into obsession when his fixation, fellow student Jennifer, goes missing. What has Mike Engleby overlooked? 
 
A cult classic and an exemplar of the campus novel, Engleby is a beguiling portrait of an outsider, told in an unforgettable voice. 
 
'Remarkable . . . intensely exhilarating' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 
'A tour-de-force . . . a great novel' DAILY MAIL 
'Compelling, disturbing and significant' SCOTSMAN

Three Short Lives

The Fatal Englishman

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
'Compelling and stunningly written' THE TIMES 
'Wildly exciting . . . a classic' SPECTATOR 
'Flawless . . . poetic . . . superbly portrayed' DAILY TELEGRAPH 
 
Three men. Three short, glittering lives. 
 
Young English painter Christopher Wood arrives in Paris in 1921 set on becoming the next great master. By day he studies; by night he attends parties with Picasso and Cocteau before paying too high a price for success. Richard Hilary, a confident if unprincipled Spitfire pilot, is suffering from terrible burns after being shot down. But the operations to restore him haven't deterred him from returning to action. And Jeremy Wolfenden, the cleverest of his set at All Souls College, leaves it all behind to report on the Cold War. But his louche private life makes him a plaything for the intelligent services, taking him on a fateful journey between East and West. 
 
The Fatal Englishman is a stunning tale of three short lives that burned brightly from a master storyteller.

A Fool's Alphabet

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
'Ambitious and beautifully crafted' THE TIMES 
'Faulks writes with great emotional authority' SUNDAY TIMES 
 
Amidst the letters of the alphabet, a life reveals itself. Flashing backwards and forwards through time, we meet Pietro Russell. As a photographer in Sri Lanka, a schoolboy in Fulham and even before he was born to his wounded English father and young Italian mother. The extraordinary moments of Pietro's life are navigated with unique imagination, giving the reader a chance to view a life from a new and moving vantage point. 
 
A Fool's Alphabet is a novel of true invention from a master storyteller that sees life in all of its compelling, poignant glory.

A Week in December

'A thoughtful page-turner' THE TIMES 
'Vast, well-plotted and gripping throughout' SPECTATOR 
'Richly entertaining and highly rewarding' EVENING STANDARD 
 
Seven Londoners are invited to an opulent dinner party. From a brutal hedge-funder to a lovelorn barrister, a Polish footballer to a pickle magnate, they are defined by the virtual worlds of religious extremism, financial gambling, drugs and internet obsession they inhabit. But it is 2007, the Crash is coming, and all will face a terrible reckoning. 
 
A Week in December is a dazzling and darkly comic state-of-the-nation novel.

Birdsong

With Birdsong Faulks has produced a mesmerizing story of love and war... This book is so powerful that as I finished it I turned to the front to start again

Amazing... I have read it and re-read it and can think of no other novel for many, many years that has so moved me or stimulated in me so much reflection on the human spirit

An overpowering and beautiful novel... Ambitious, outrageous, poignant, sleep-disturbing, Birdsong is not a perfect novel, just a great one

One of the finest novels of the last forty years

This is literature at its very best: a book with the power to reveal the unimagined, so that one's life is set in a changed context. I urge you to read it

So powerful is this recreated past that you long to call Birdsong perfect

A powerful novel that is difficult to put down

My favourite novel of all time because it’s not just the most moving First World War story, it also has a wonderful romance

Magnificent. A classic that everyone should have read.

A sweeping historical drama, it’s also erotic, poignant and tear-inducing. I read it and wept buckets. I don’t think anything else Faulks has written before or since surpasses the brilliance of this one.

This is literature at its very best. A book with the power to reveal the unimagined, so that one’s life is set in a changed context. I urge you to read it.

While marked by poppy wearing and memorial ceremonies, the First World War is also sustained through family history, handed down from one generation to the next. No book better articulates the impact of this narrative than Stephen Faulks’ Birdsong.

I’d never read such descriptive literature, and couldn’t sleep at night for thinking about what I’d just read. His [Faulks] portrayal of terror on the battlefield is so powerful

'Magnificent - deeply moving' Sunday Times 
'Engrossing, moving, and unforgettable' The Times 
 
In the heat of the French summer of 1910, young Englishman Stephen Wraysford arrives in Amiens to stay with the Azaire family. But soon a secret passion emerges that threatens to destroy the household. Six years later, Stephen finds himself on the Western Front with civilization itself in the balance. And in a maze of tunnels under the trenches he will fight for everything he has known and loved. 
 
An epic of love, death and redemption, Birdsong has moved millions of readers all over the world to become a contemporary classic.

Girl At The Lion d'Or

[A] story of restrained emotions played out in a period setting among picturesque locations . . . Faulks gives every sign of being a real novelist, who thinks and feels through the written word

'Beautifully written and extraordinarily moving' SUNDAY TIMES 
'A powerful story of love, conscience, will and desire' OBSERVER 
'A poised and well-judged work' FINANCIAL TIMES 
 
Anne Louvet needs to escape from Paris and from memories she cannot face. In the year 1936 she arrives at the faded Hotel du Lion d'Or on the Brittany coast, to work as a maid. There she meets Hartmann, a man she believes will change her life and save her from her past. 
 
From the author of Birdsong, comes a deeply moving story of love and conscience, will and desire.

Charlotte Gray

Vintage Minis

Vintage Minis bring you the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human – from birth to death and everything in between

A soldier falls asleep on duty and is threatened with being court-martialled. An officer lies in mud, fighting for his life and the life of his men. A young man walks across Waterloo Bridge, explosives in his rucksack, heart pounding. In this powerfully moving book, Faulks shows us the true face of war. These are stories of death and survival, of hope and despair, and of ordinary people whose lives will never be the same again. 
 
Selected from the books Birdsong, A Possible Life and A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks 
 
VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human 
 
Also in the Vintage Minis series: 
Home by Salman Rushdie 
Fatherhood by Karl Ove Knausgaard 
Work by Joseph Heller 
Dreams by Sigmund Freud

Pistache Returns

A collection of fanciful, satirical and surprising parodies, squibs and pastiches inspired by The Write Stuff on Radio 4

Robinson Crusoe discovers thousands of ‘half-naked savages’ having it large on Ibiza. 
 
James Bond is on a mission, as a 24-hour call-out plumber. 
 
‘The young stable lad is a moody fellow,’ say reviewers of Wuthering Heights in The Good Hotel Guide. 
 
Hans Christian Andersen gets into the subprime mortgage racket. 
 
Stephen King attempts a love story that doesn’t involve buckets of blood. 
 
Robbie Burns cheers on Andy Murray at Wimbledon. 
 
And Harry Potter is left high and dry when Ginny kicks him out and keeps the house. 
 
Re-mixed and re-imagined, this is literature but not as you know it.

Jeeves and the Wedding Bells

A gloriously witty novel from Sebastian Faulks using P.G. Wodehouse’s much-loved characters, Jeeves and Wooster, fully authorised by the Wodehouse estate.

This light-hearted romp is delightfully witty, packed with puns and boasts a few phrases that Wodehouse himself would have deemed top-hole. Splendid stuff.

The finished product resembles, in all but cover, a traditional Wodehousian yarn. Harking back to the summer of 1926, it is a gentle, jolly tale – of farce and mistaken identity, of love lost and found, of cricket matches, village fetes and the eccentric upper classes.

At two memorable moments in Jeeves and the Wedding Bells I did indeed laugh until I cried… Jeeves and the Wedding Bells is a masterpiece… This is a pitch-perfect undertaking: proof, almost a century after his debut, that Jeeves may not be so inimitable after all.

The plot is satisfyingly convoluted in the best Wodehouse tradition . . . A genuine addition to my growing Wodehouse collection and there is no higher tribute.

He catches the Wodehousean idiom, periphrasis, surreal similes and bally silliness to a T, all done with love. Please commission a dozen more, Hutchinson.

From the first page of Sebastian Faulks’s entirely delightful book . . . we are transported to Wodehouse land. All the details, of plot, of character, and of setting, are lovingly drawn. The hours spent reading Jeeves and the Wedding Bells are pure pleasure.

Faulks has caught the mood and the dialogue perfectly

The plot is just as twisty and absurd as you’d want . . . Credit to old Faulks. I’d like to see someone try to do this better.

I was soon laughing out loud and occasionally forgetting this wasn’t the real thing . . . this is a top-hole treat.

'Brings the peerless Jeeves and Wooster barrelling back to life' Daily Mail 
 
A gloriously witty novel from Sebastian Faulks using P.G. Wodehouse’s much-loved characters, Jeeves and Wooster, fully authorised by the Wodehouse estate. 
 
Bertie Wooster is staying at the stately home of Sir Henry Hackwood in Dorset. He is more than familiar with the country-house set-up: he is a veteran of the cocktail hour and, thanks to Jeeves, his gentleman’s personal gentleman, is never less than immaculately dressed. 
 
On this occasion, however, it is Jeeves who is to be seen in the drawing room while Bertie finds himself below stairs – which he doesn’t care for at all. 
 
His predicament is, of course, all in the name of love … 
 
‘A masterpiece … a pitch-perfect undertaking’ Spectator 
 
‘Entirely delightful’ Financial Times 
 
‘Delightfully witty, packed with puns’ Sunday Mirror 
 
‘A polished sparkling genuine fake’ Herald

War Stories

A unique anthology that brings together the best fictional writing about war in the last century

The range is international, the impeccable standards of writing never dip. This is some of the finest writing about war

An anthology that tries, in a century that has made an art form of killing, to make sense of it all

In this unique and compelling anthology, Sebastian Faulks and Jorg Hensgen have collected the best fiction about war in the twentieth century.  Ranging from the First World War to the Gulf War, these stories depict a soldier's experience from call-up, battle and comradeship, to leave, hospital and trauma in later life.  Truly international in scope, this anthology includes stories by Erich Maria Remarque and Pat Barker, Isaac Babel and Ernest Hemingway, Heinrich Boll and Norman Mailer, JG Ballard and Tim O'Brien, Julian Barnes and Louis de Bernieres.  Together they form a powerful and moving evocation of the horrors of war.

Faulks on Fiction

A compelling and personal look at the British novel through its greatest characters - the heroes, lovers, snobs and villains - by bestselling novelist Sebastian Faulks

Faulks on Fiction is not intended as a formal history of the British novel, but it is much more worthwhile and enjoyable than any history of the novel I have read.

Faulks on Fiction is a fine reminder of why you love the characters you do; and it will serve as an introduction to new friends, too

Faulks on Fiction revels in the creation of vital, unruly characters

Full of personal anecdotes and warm-blooded opinions.

It's like finding yourself transported into an intelligent debate about your favourite books... Superb.

A warm and engaging examination of the novel.

Ever since Robinson Crusoe in 1719, the novel has introduced British readers to truly unforgettable characters - people in whom we can find deeper understanding of our own lives. In this engaging and personal book, Sebastian Faulks examines and celebrates the most famous and best-loved of these dazzling fictional creations and their wider impact on British culture as a whole. From Sherlock Holmes and Mr Darcy to Emma Woodhouse and James Bond - this is the story of the heroes, lovers, snobs and villains in all of us.

Sebastian Faulks

A fascinating, timely and densely pleasurable novel, written with measured and impressive intelligence and tremendous narrative aplomb.

Beautifully written and deceptively deep novel of moral choice set in the aftermath of the Second World War. The characters are as utterly convincing as the story.

A richly researched and deeply humane meditation on love, faith and the long afterlife of war, set amid the final years of the British Mandate in Palestine and post-war England. Faulks has an extraordinary gift for showing how the sweep of history is lived through the quiet complexities of individual lives.

Hannah Rothschild, author of the Women's Prize shortlisted novel THE IMPROBABILITY OF LOVE

Faulks is one of the titans of historical fiction ... [and] has this gift for really bringing to life the minutiae of the suffering of war and violence. ... It's a really arresting book and important work of storytelling. A must-read.

A magnificent, sprawling novel full of humane detail - you won't want it to end. It's a powerful reminder, too, of our greatest privilege to be reading in a time and place of relative peace.

A timely masterpiece; a riveting story of war and love across two scarred terrains. A profound meditation on morality, faith and music [...] with wonderful moments of lightness and wit. A novel that both entertains and educates. You finish it smarter, wiser and more compassionate towards our postlapsarian world.

A sweeping saga that intertwines historical events and deeply human experiences. A perfect balance of history faith and humanity with a delicious twist.

A sweeping saga that seamlessly intertwines historical events and deeply human experiences It's a perfect balance of history faith and a little humanity.

The epic and profound new historical novel set in post-World War Two Britain, from the Sunday Times bestselling author of BIRDSONG, Sebastian Faulks. 
 
'A fascinating, timely and densely pleasurable novel, written with measured and impressive intelligence and tremendous narrative aplomb' 
WILLIAM BOYD 
 
'Richly researched and deeply humane . . . Faulks has an extraordinary gift for showing how the sweep of history is lived through the quiet complexities of individual lives' 
HANNAH ROTHSCHILD 
 
‘Beautifully written and deceptively deep novel of moral choice set in the aftermath of the Second World War. The characters are as utterly convincing as the story’ 
ANTONY BEEVOR 
 
'An arresting book and important work of storytelling. A must-read.' 
AFUA HIRSCH 
 
Philip Deval, a soldier recently returned from the beaches of Normandy, arrives in Palestine on a peace-keeping mission in the final days of the British Mandate. The Sea of Galilee glitters in the distance as war-weary troops marvel at the novelty of oranges and sun – a paradise that belies a fierce new conflict about to erupt. 
 
Some years later, Philip begins work teaching at a school in the English countryside and meets the enigmatic music mistress, Frances Darwood. Over long evenings spent listening to records in her music room, they grow close. 
 
But Philip is a changed man, and must confront the secrets and scars of all he has lived through – which threaten, even now, to upend his future. 
 
Farewell to Eden is a sweeping and profound novel about faith in all its forms, and a rich portrait of an embattled post-war Britain. It asks the question: how, after great suffering, do we retain our humanity, learn to love again, and believe in the promise of a better life? 
 
Reader reviews 
 
***** ‘Faulks continues to be the most incredible storyteller. I demolished this book and kept thinking about it long after I finished.' 
 
***** 'It's not often that I finish a novel and think that I'd like to reread it immediately. This is one.' 
 
***** 'Beautifully written and a stimulating read from a wonderful author at the top of his game.' 
 
***** 'Heartbreaking, interesting, educational (you can always trust Faulks's research), shockingly surprising and such a great read.' 
 
***** 'Oh - how I loved this gentle but incredibly powerful book.'

Sebastian Faulks

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