Michel Faber

One of the most talked-about novels of the year, this international bestseller gives new meaning to the term “unputdownable.” Reviewers and readers everywhere have been eagerly abandoning their everyday lives for days and even weeks on end, refusing to leave Michel Faber’s vividly realized fictional world. They are captivated by Sugar, an enigmatic nineteen-year-old prostitute whose story begins in a hellish nineteenth-century London brothel. Struggling to lift her body and soul out of the gutter, Sugar claws her way up the social ladder to gain refuge in the wealthy family of her besotted lover, William Rackham, unwilling heir to a perfumery. Now in the popular Perennial format, The Crimson Petal and the White is a gripping tale, extraordinarily rich, intricate and intoxicating to the final page.

A modern-day Dickensian fable and a celebration of friendship and humanity, by the acclaimed author of The Crimson Petal and the White.It all starts on the morning the letter D disappears from the language. First, it vanishes from her parents’ conversation at breakfast, then from the road signs outside. Soon the local dentist and the neighbour’s Dalmatian are missing, and even the Donkey Derby has been called off. Though she doesn’t know why, Dhikilo is summoned to the home of her old history teacher Professor Dodderfield and his faithful Labrador, Nelly Robinson. And this is where our story begins.Set between England and the wintry land of Liminus, a world enslaved by the monstrous Gamp and populated by fearsome, enchanting creatures, D: A Tale of Two Worlds is a mesmerising tale of friendship and bravery in an uncertain world. Told with simple beauty and warmth, its celebration of moral courage and freethinking is a powerful reminder of our human capacity for strength, hope and justice.

Een man neemt afscheid van zijn vrouw. Hij gaat als zendeling op een reis die niet zonder risico is. Met dit vertrekpunt opent Het boek van wonderlijke nieuwe dingen. Vanaf het moment dat Peter Leigh zijn vrouw Bea achterlaat, begint een zoektocht die hem zwaar op de proef stelt. Ergens ver weg, in een ondoorgrondelijk universum, komt hij wonderlijke zaken tegen… en zichzelf. Het boek van wonderlijke nieuwe dingen is een virtuoze, grensverleggende roman over avontuur, geloof en liefde: datgene wat mensen verbindt, zelfs als ze lichtjaren van elkaar zijn gescheiden.

«Quel che mi piace, nei libri, sono i personaggi. I personaggi di cui ti ricorderai per tutta la vita. Sugar, la giovane prostituta che ci accompagna nel voluttuoso romanzo di Michel Faber, è un personaggio di cui mi sono innamorata a prima vista. Quando i libri sono grossi è bene che siano belli. E questo lo è senza alcun dubbio. Tuffatevi dentro alle sue pagine. Buon divertimento!» Alice Sebold Vent’anni di ricerche, dieci di scrittura, una vita schiva e appartata: cosí Michel Faber è arrivato a un capolavoro tradotto in 26 paesi e acclamato in tutto il mondo, per tre mesi in testa alle classifique dei libri più venduti in America. Nella Londra del 1875, Sugar, una prostituta di diciannove anni, la piú desiderata in città, cerca la via per sottrarre il proprio corpo e l’anima al fango delle strade. Dai vicoli luridi e malfamati Michel Faber ci guida, seguendo la scalata di Sugar, fino allo splendore delle classi alte della società vittoriana, dove violiamo l’intimità di personaggi terribili e fragili, comunque indimenticabili. Come Rackham, il giovane erede di una grande fortuna che diverrà l’amante di Sugar, e sua moglie, l’angelica e infelice Agnes. Il lettore è costantemente dietro la spalla di Sugar e degli altri protagonisti, catturato da una scrittura che ha la magia di ricreare in ogni dettaglio strade, camere, vestiti, cibi, odori, sapori.

This book is, at its core, about music and the people who listen to it—your friends, your neighbors and you. A fresh approach toward our cultural and sensical relationship to sound, this melodic examination of the world of music explores two big questions: How do we listen to music and why do we listen to it in the first place? From a range of factors that shape our experience of sound—biology, age, illness and more—Listen challenges the very dichotomy between “good” and “bad” music. Lyrically woven and deeply evocative, Michel Faber’s nonfiction debut reflects his lifelong passion for music of all kinds. Listen will change your relationship with the heard world.

Sugar tiene diecinueve años y ejerce la prostitución desde los trece, cuando su madre introdujo a uno de sus clientes en su cama. William Rackham es un caballero de treinta y un años, educado en Oxford, condenado a suceder a su padre en la industria familiar, pero que siempre ha deseado llevar una vida de goces intelectuales. Está casado con la hermosa Agnes, a la que ama, aunque ella odia el sexo y abomina de la maternidad. Y un día en que William se siente más iracundo que nunca, cae en sus manos un folleto donde recomiendan el prostíbulo de la señora Castaway, y elogian a su pupila Sugar. La jovencita seduce a William. Y él decide no compartirla con nadie, aunque tenga que optar por la empresa de su padre, y dividirse entre el pétalo carmesí y el blanco... Versión posmoderna de la novela victoriana, es también una apasionante indagación en el enigma de la femineidad.

Michel Faber's short stories are markedly diverse-the voice of each is so distinct that the book reads like an anthology of different writers. But Faber's radically inventive style fastens all fifteen stories into a compelling collection deserving of the high praise it garnered in the United Kingdom. One surreal story, "Fish," projects a futuristic world populated with fish swimming in the air. As sharks hover in abandoned corners and human zealots of the Church of the Armageddon loose their fanaticism on the innocent, it's a mother's full-time job to protect her young daughter. The title story, " Some Rain Must Fall, " tells of a substitute schoolteacher called on in a crisis, and as she encourages her pupils to express their feelings, we learn the source of the class's a devastating act that resonates with contemporary America. As Garth Morris wrote in the Mail on Sunday (London), "these are well-crafted pieces of quiet forlorn intensity in a very real world."

Enjoy more Sugar. Join Clara at the rat pit. Relax with Mr Bodley as he is lulled to sleep by Mrs Tremain and her girls. Find out what became of Sophie. Michel Faber revisits the world of his bestselling novel The Crimson Petal and the White, conjuring tantalising glimpses of its characters, their lives before we first met them and their intriguing futures. You'll be desperate for more by the time you reluctantly re-emerge into the twenty-first century.

A monumental, genre-defying novel over ten years in the making, Michel Faber's The Book of Strange New Things is a masterwork from a writer in full command of his many talents. It begins with Peter, a devoted man of faith, as he is called to the mission of a lifetime, one that takes him galaxies away from his wife, Bea. Peter becomes immersed in the mysteries of an astonishing new environment, overseen by an enigmatic corporation known only as USIC. His work introduces him to a seemingly friendly native population struggling with a dangerous illness and hungry for Peter's teachings—his Bible is their "book of strange new things." But Peter is rattled when Bea's letters from home become increasingly desperate: typhoons and earthquakes are devastating whole countries, and governments are crumbling. Bea's faith, once the guiding light of their lives, begins to falter. Suddenly, a separation measured by an otherworldly distance, and defined both by one newly discovered world and another in a state of collapse, is threatened by an ever-widening gulf that is much less quantifiable. While Peter is reconciling the needs of his congregation with the desires of his strange employer, Bea is struggling for survival. Their trials lay bare a profound meditation on faith, love tested beyond endurance, and our responsibility to those closest to us. Marked by the same bravura storytelling and precise language that made The Crimson Petal and the White such an international success, The Book of Strange New Things is extraordinary, mesmerizing, and replete with emotional complexity and genuine pathos.

With his elegant prose, distinctive imagination, and deep empathy, the bestselling author of The Crimson Petal and the White once again dazzles us in three novellas. "The Courage Consort" tells of an a capella vocal ensemble sequestered in a Belgian chateau to rehearse a monstrously complicated new piece. But competing artistic temperaments and sexual needs create as much discordance as the avant garde music. In "The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps," a lonely woman joins an archaeological dig at Whitby Abbey and unearths a mystery involving a long-hidden murder. In "The Fahrenheit Twins," strange children, identical in all but gender and left alone at the icy zenith of the world by their anthropologist parents, create their own ritual civilization.In each of these novellas, Michel Faber creates a unique, self-contained world, where the perennial human drama plays out in all its passion and ambiguity.

Sugar, 19, prostitute in Victorian London, yearns for a better life. From brutal brothel-keeper Mrs Castaway, she ascends in society. Affections of self-involved perfume magnate William Rackham soon smells like love. Her social rise attracts preening socialites, drunken journalists, untrustworthy servants, vile guttersnipes, and whores of all kinds.

Theo Griepenkerl is a modest academic with an Olympian ego. When he visits a looted museum in Iraq, looking for treasures he can ship back to Canada, he finds nine papyrus scrolls that have lain hidden for two thousand years. Once translated from Aramaic, these prove to be a fifth Gospel, written by an eye-witness of Jesus Christ's last days. But when Theo decides to share this sensational discovery with the world, he fails to imagine the impact the new Gospel will have on Christians, Arabs, homicidal maniacs and Amazon customers. Like Prometheus's gift of fire, it has incendiary consequences.The Fire Gospel is an enthralling novel about the power of words to resonate across centuries, and inspire and disrupt in equal measure. Wickedly provocative, hilarious and shocking by turns, it is a revelatory piece of storytelling. "From the Hardcover edition."

Sian, tired of nightmares in which she meets a grisly end, decides she needs to get out more, so she joins an archaeological dig at Whitby Abbey. What she finds is a mystery involving a long-hidden murder, a man with big hands, a fragile manuscript in a bottle, and a rather attractive dog called Hadrian. Faber's dazzling novella takes us up the 199 steps in Whitby that link the 21st century with the ruins of the past. Equal and indissoluble parts thriller, romance, historical/ghost story and meditation on the nature of sincerity, this is an ingenious literary page-turner. Atmospheric photographs complement the text beautifully. This book, like Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, deploys a masterful sense of ambiguity, outstanding narrative power, works on many levels and, as always with Faber's writing, is elegant, thought-provoking, distinctive and compelling.

The novel centres around a female character, Isserly, who seems to be obsessed with picking up male hitch-hikers, as long as they are muscular and fit. As the story unfolds, the reader comes to realise that Isserly's motives are rather unusual.

How can you say goodbye to the love of your life? In Undying Michel Faber honours the memory of his wife, who died after a six-year battle with cancer. Bright, tragic, candid and true, these poems are an exceptional chronicle of what it means to find the love of your life. And what it is like to have to say goodbye. All I can do, in what remains of my brief time, is mention, to whoever cares to listen, that a woman once existed, who was kind and beautiful and brave, and I will not forget how the world was altered, beyond recognition, when we met.