Faber and Faber Rites of Passage Голдинг Уильям

Hunt, trek, and feast among Neanderthals in this stunning novel by the radical Nobel Laureate and author of Lord of the Flies, introduced by Ben Okri • This was a different voice; not the voice of the people. It was the voice of other • When spring comes, the people leave their winter cave, foraging for honey, grubs, and the hot richness of a deer’s brain. They awaken the fire to heat their naked bodies, lay down their thorn bushes, and share pictures in their minds. But strange things are happening: inexplicable scents and sounds. Imaginable beasts are half-glimpsed in the forest; upright creatures of bone-faces and deerskins. What the people do not know is that their day is already over …

Experience a shipwrecked sailor’s disintegration into ‘a naked madman on a rock’ by the radical Nobel Laureate and author of Lord of the Flies, introduced by Marlon James • An hour on this rock is a lifetime • Glistening limpets. Lobster claws. Wild tangles of seaweed. Slowly, his eyes open. Everywhere, there is sea. Only this jagged peak interrupts the vast expanse of the Atlantic: a tooth in a gaping jaw. But he will survive. Rainwater can be drunk; anemones eaten. He dries his oilskin beneath the screaming gulls, and discovers his papers: Christopher Hadley Martin, TY. Lieut., R.N.V.R. Weathering lightning strikes of memory, he must now reconstruct his fate – piece by terrible piece

I could take whichever I would of these paths • Sammy Mountjoy is an artist who has risen from poverty to see his pictures hung in the Tate Gallery. Swept into World War II, he is captured as a German prisoner of war, threatened with torture and locked in a cell of total darkness. He emerges transfigured by his ordeal, realising how his choices have made him the author of his life, interrogating religion and rationality, early loves and formative beliefs – and questioning freedom itself

Lose yourself in an epic naval journey in the second novel in the Booker Prize-winning Sea Trilogy by the author of Lord of the Flies • This tropical nowhere was the whole world — the whole imaginable world • A decrepit warship is becalmed halfway to Australia, stilled in an ocean wilderness of heat and sea mists. In this surreal, fete-like atmosphere, a ball is held with a passing ship: the passengers dance and flirt, while beneath them seaweed like green hair spreads omniously over the hull. Half-mad with fear, drink, love and opium, both vessel and passengers feel themselves going to pieces: and the very planks seem to twist themselves alive as the ship comes apart at the seams

Oliver is eighteen and wants to enjoy himself before going to university. But this is the 1920s and he lives in Stilbourne, a small English country town where everyone knows what everyone else is getting up to, and where love, lust and rebellion are closely followed by revenge and embarrassment

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 • 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 • The next in the bestselling According to Humphrey series, Humphrey and his friends in Room 26 learn about ancient Egypt. Mummies, pharaohs, pyramids and plenty of SHH-SHH-SHH secrets abound! Will Humphrey be able to solve the mysteries of the pharaohs…? • From award-winning author Betty G. Birney

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

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Our Fathers is a powerful reclamation of the past from one of Britain’s most accomplished literary novelists • Hugh Bawn, modern Scottish hero and legendary social reformer, lies dying in one of the high-rise tower blocks he helped establish. His grandson Jamie comes home to watch over him, and it is Jamie who tells the story of their family, of three generations of pride and delusion, of nationality and strong drink, of Catholic faith and the end of the old left. It is a tale of dark hearts and modern houses – of three men in search of Utopia

In a hard-boiled city of crooks, grifts and rackets lurk a pair of toughs: Box and _____. They’re the kind of men capable of extracting apologies and reparations, of teaching you a chilling lesson. They seldom think twice, and ask very few questions • Until one night over the poker table, they encounter a pulp writer with wild ideas and an unscrupulous private detective, leading them into what is either a classic mystery, a senseless maze of corpses, or an inextricable fever dream • Drunk on cinematic and literary influence, Muscle is a slice of noir fiction in collapse, a ceaselessly imaginative story of violence, boredom and madness