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. 

1990-main-image-1800×1200.jpg

Reading lists

Books that defined the 1990s

book-lovers-paris-article-card.jpg

Features

The book lover’s guide to… Paris

seb-faulks-inline-image_v1.png

An interview with Sebastian Faulks

Snow Country

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.

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

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

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

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

Sebastian Faulks

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

A Life in Progress

'A wise and heartfelt piece of writing' THE TIMES 
 
‘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

Sebastian Faulks

Praise for 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

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

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

Books by Sebastian Faulks

Articles featuring Sebastian Faulks

Books that defined the 1990s

The book lover’s guide to… Paris

An interview with Sebastian Faulks

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter