Faber and Faber Close Quarters Голдинг Уильям

Lose yourself in an epic naval journey in this Booker Prize-winning novel: the first in the acclaimed Sea Trilogy by the author of Lord of the Flies • I grow a little crazy, I think, like all men at sea who live too close to each other and too close thereby to all that is monstrous under the sun and moon • Edmund Talbot is sailing to Australia in the early nineteenth century. In his journal, he records mounting tensions aboard the ancient, stinking warship, as officers, sailors, soldiers and emigrants jostle in the cramped darkness below decks. But when something happens to Reverend Colley that brings him into a ‘hell of self-degradation’, it seems that shame is a force deadlier than the sea itself

Meet the Oracle of Delphi in ancient Greece in this transporting tale of the classical world by the radical Nobel Laureate and author of Lord of the Flies, introduced by Bettany Hughes • Did I believe in what I was doing? Or rather, since I was doing nothing, did I believe in what someone, something was doing to me? • It begins with the half-burnt fish, miraculously restored to life, and the healing of the ill child • Young Arieka is an unloved misfit, but as rumours of her spiritual powers reach the High Priest of Apollo, her life is transformed. She is taken to Delphi to become a Pythia: a mouthpiece for the god Apollo, an oracle uttering riddling prophecies from a smoky cave to frenzied crowds • But when this role is dramatically thrust upon her, the priestess must navigate political conspiracy and the threat of the Romans to preserve her belief – and sanity

Introduced by Kate Mosse, lose yourself in an epic naval journey in the final novel in the Booker Prize-winning historical fiction Sea Trilogy by the author of Lord of the Flies • I think there has been death in my hands • On the last stretch of its epic voyage from England to Australia, a disintegrating warship inches towards land. But there are still trials ahead, as the vessel is smashed against an ice cliff and blasted by a great storm, while the claustrophobic passengers battle erotic desires, masculine rivalry and violent power struggles – all experiencing a sea change in their natures. And when an unseen fire begins to smoulder below decks, the other side of the world has never seemed further away …

Fame, success, fortune, a drink problem slipping over the edge into alcoholism, a dead marriage, the incurable itches of middle-aged lust. For Wilfred Barclay, novelist, the final unbearable irritation is Professor Rick L. Tucker, implacable in his determination to become The Barclay Man. Locked in a lethal relationship they stumble across Europe, shedding wives, self-respect and illusions. The climax of their odyssey, when it comes, is as inevitable as it is unexpected

Even when he leapt from the parapet he talked • Ancient Egypt. The Prince is set to marry Pretty Flower, his sister, in the Great House's incestuous society. But the Liar speaks a truth that transforms everything … • A primitive matriarchal society. While mothers raise children in the bucolic Place of Women, Chimp is tormented by the Leopard Men in their brutal hunts, until he gains new wisdom … • Imperial Rome. In an era of invention and exploration, the emperor realises he loves his illegitimate grandson more than his own loutish heir …

Faber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles • ‘My only concern’, John McGahern once said, ‘is that I get the sentence right and describe my world clearly and deeply.’ • ‘The Country Funeral’ witnesses three brothers, John, Philly and Fonsie Ryan, as they travel west from Dublin to Gloria Bog – the heart of the territory where so many of McGahern’s stories take place – to attend the funeral of their uncle. Depicting the customs and rituals of the day, McGahern exquisitely traces how the brothers react to the area in unexpected and tender ways, and face their own feelings about the transience of life • Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work

Faber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles • Between his second and third tours of duty, a soldier returns home • To his former home, that is, using an old key while the new tenant is at work. Is he re-entering his old life or borrowing someone else’s? Where is the line he will not cross? Each day is the same: he exists in a state of suspension, barely knowing how he passes the time – until someone else intrudes on the intruder • Adrian Tomine, graphic master of alienation and regret, expertly expands the form to express the unsaid and the unbearable in this unforgettable evocation of a post-traumatic life • Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work

Faber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles • ‘Be sure you don’t answer the door to anyone you don’t know.’ • A little Patricia Highsmith, a touch of Shirley Jackson: the long-neglected Celia Fremlin wrote short, sharp stories that threw women’s lives into shiver-inducing relief • In each of these twinned tales, a mother and daughter meet again, and an ordinary home becomes the setting for a return of the repressed • Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work

Faber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles • A chance encounter leads a man to spend the afternoon with an older woman, now a widow, who escaped him fifteen years earlier. Neither of them doubts that the day will end in disgust, but for one intimate moment each finds a way to overcome mortality • Written in 1969, before Milan Kundera was known to English-speaking readers, this story renders male and female characters painful equals, and prompted Philip Roth to admire its ‘detached Chekhovian tenderness’ • Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work

Faber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles • This heart is sore and sad. Crossed in love? • The manuscript of ‘Giacomo Joyce’, written in James Joyce’s best handwriting and folded between the covers of a school notebook, was discovered in Trieste. Most likely written in 1914, some of it served as a rehearsal for passages in Ulysses. Had Joyce meant to pillage it or publish it? Either way, this fragmented evocation of unrequited desire is, in the words of Joyce’s biographer Richard Ellmann, a work of ‘small, fragile, enduring perfection’ • With a new introduction by Colm Toibin • Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work

Faber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles • Of course, of everybody of whom this particular hero was suspicious, he was most suspicious of femme fatale, of this woman he was in love with. Even before he discovered she had a spell on her he was distrustful of her. He didn’t want to be, but that’s just how it goes • Written by Anna Burns before she completed her dazzling Man Booker-winning novel Milkman, ‘Mostly Hero’ is the hilarious, hell-raising descendant of Quentin Tarantino and the Brothers Grimm. Originally self-published online, it is available here in print for the first time • Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work

Faber’s bestselling hamster series is given a smart new livery, repositioning our favourite as a perennial classic character, sitting alongside the likes of Winnie the Pooh and Wind in Willows • Dear Friends, • When Og the Frog came to live in Room 26, I felt a little jealous. Still, I tried to be welcoming but I soon discovered that it’s HARD-HARD-HARD to make friends with a lumpy, bumpy frog! • Then I found out that my fellow students were having problems with their friends, too. A.J. and Garth had to deal with a bully named Mean Martin Bean. Heidi and Gail had a terrible argument, and Miranda-Golden had a new stepsister who wasn’t nice at all. Then there was the Poetry Festival, the magic show and the snowstorm! How could one small hamster solve all those problems? • Luckily, I wrote the whole story in my notebook so you could share my adventures