FaberBooks

Sample: Inherit The Truth by Anita Lasker-Wallfisch by FaberBooks

Audio Trailer: Inherit The Truth by Anita Lasker-Wallfisch by FaberBooks

Voice Memo 9 - Rat Park (pg 120-121) by FaberBooks

Voice Memo 47 - Bystander Effect (pg 210-211) by FaberBooks

Voice Memo 23 - Cavepeople (pg 163-164) by FaberBooks

Hear Anna Burns reading from and discussing her Booker Prize-winning novel Milkman.

This reading of Hope Mirrlees’s Paris is from a Dead Poets Live production with Charlotte Rampling and Lambert Wilson, recorded in Paris in 2019 and directed by James Lever. © the Estate of Hope Mirrlees

New Cemetery: Audiobook Extract by FaberBooks

John & Paul: Audiobook Extract by FaberBooks

Small Things Like These: Audiobook Extract by FaberBooks

Outline: Audiobook Extract by FaberBooks

Demon Copperhead: Audiobook Extract by FaberBooks

Klara and the Sun: Audiobook Extract by FaberBooks

Listen to Simon Armitage reading 'Nest Box' from Dwell

The Unnamable (Sound Art) by FaberBooks

Camille Ralphs reads My Word: from the Spiritual Diary of Dr Dee, a sequence of poems from her debut collection, After You Were, I Am (Faber & Faber, 2024), which is now available in audiobook, paperback and ebook. 'An astonishing adventure . . .This is poetry that delights in etymology and alchemical wordplay.' Guardian 'After You Were, I Am, showcases an ambition, seriousness and wit that make it strangely timeless – one feels it could have been published in any era and be worthy of a readership . . . I expect to be re-reading it for years to come.' Telegraph

Yobbo - From - Look - We - Have - Coming - To - Dover - Audio - 2-mins by FaberBooks

The - Bell - Jar - Audio - 2-mins by FaberBooks

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro - Chapter One Opening by FaberBooks

Lord of the Flies by William Golding - Audiobook by FaberBooks

Nestor Kornblum - Overtone Chant by FaberBooks

Listen to an extract from the Booker Prize winning Rites of Passage originally read by William Golding in 1989 and re-mastered in 2022.

Thomas Stearns Eliot, poet, critic, publisher, was born in St Louis, Missouri, in 1888 and died in London on 4 January 1965. In 1922, he published The Waste Land, a poem that exerted the single greatest influence on English poetry in the last century, and whose centenary will be marked by publication and events throughout the coming year. Listen to Edoardo Ballerini read the opening lines from The Waste Land, taken from the audio book of the Centenary Edition available from 6 January 2022.

Listen to the essay 'Black British Mothers Matter', written by Baroness Doreen Lawrence and read by Debra Michaels. Introduced by Marcus Ryder. This is an exclusive extract from the audiobook Black British Lives Matter, a wide-ranging and urgent essay collection highlighting the vital benefits that Black Britons bring to society and the crucial importance of eradicating systemic racism. Edited by Lenny Henry and Marcus Ryder and featuring contributions from Doreen Lawrence, David Olusoga, Dawn Butler, Anne-Marie Imafidon and many others. Find out more about the book: faber.co.uk/product/9780571368495-black-british-lives-matter/

Listen to 'Black British Historians Matter' by Lenny Henry and David Olusoga, read by Lenny Henry and Ben Onwukwe. This is an exclusive extract from the audiobook Black British Lives Matter, a wide-ranging and urgent essay collection highlighting the vital benefits that Black Britons bring to society and the crucial importance of eradicating systemic racism. Edited by Lenny Henry and Marcus Ryder and featuring contributions from Doreen Lawrence, David Olusoga, Dawn Butler, Anne-Marie Imafidon and many others. Find out more: faber.co.uk/product/9780571368495-black-british-lives-matter/

Experience a shipwrecked sailor's psychic disintegration into 'a naked madman on a rock' by the radical Nobel Laureate and author of Lord of the Flies. An hour on this rock is a lifetime. Christopher Martin, the sole survivor of a torpedoed destroyer, is stranded upon a rock in the middle of the Atlantic. Pitted against him are the sea, the sun, the brutal cold, and the aching terror of his isolation. To drink there is a pool of rainwater; to eat, seaweed and anemones, preyed upon by feathered reptiles. As he descends into the abyss of his consciousness, weathering lightning strikes of memory, Martin must try to assemble the truth of his fate - piece by terrible piece. 'A work of genius.' Philippa Gregory 'The utmost inventiveness ... No reader will forget the world it reveals.' Kingsley Amis 'Wizardry of the first order.' Observer

Hunt, trek, and feast among Neanderthals in this stunning vision of prehistory on the cusp of a new age, from the radical Nobel Laureate and author of Lord of the Flies. 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 and shoots, bulbs and grubs, 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, sounds, and violence - and, suddenly, unimaginable creatures are half-glimpsed in the forest; an upright new people of bone-faces and deerskins. What the early people don't know is that their season is already over ... 'An earthquake in the petrified forests of the English novel.' Arthur Koestler 'A tour de force ... Genius.' Daily Telegraph 'Alarming, eye-opening, desolating, mind-invading and unique.' New Statesman 'Powerful and provocative ... Each time I revisit The Inheritors I find something new.' Penelope Lively

An extract from the audiobook of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, read by Maggie Gyllenhaal. ‘A modern classic.’ Guardian ‘A near-perfect work of art.’ Joyce Carol Oates I was supposed to be having the time of my life . . . Working as an intern for a New York fashion magazine in the summer of 1953, Esther Greenwood is on the brink of her future. Yet she is also on the edge of a darkness that makes her world increasingly unreal. Esther’s vision of the world shimmers and shifts: day-to-day living in the sultry city, her crazed men-friends, the hot dinner dances . . . The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath’s only novel, is partially based on Plath’s own life. It has been celebrated for its darkly funny and razor sharp portrait of 1950s society, and has sold millions of copies worldwide. ONE OF THE BBC'S '100 NOVELS THAT SHAPED OUR WORLD' 'As clear and readable as it is witty and disturbing.' New York Times Book Review Reader responses: 'Plath's underrated humour shines through this startling account of 1950s 'normality'.' 'Very readable, often darkly funny, and feels fresh.' 'Plath's masterpiece . . . It's amazing how relevant this book still is.' 'So enthralling . . . So thought provoking, so vivid, that it's thoroughly engrossing.' 'I just couldn't put it down.' 'Ever better than I expected.'

'An immensely engaging writer: wry and witty, and insightful.' Sunday Times 'A vivid and meticulous writer.' Observer From the widely renowned author Andrew O'Hagan, a heartbreaking novel of an extraordinary lifelong friendship. Everyone has a Tully Dawson: the friend who defines your life. In the summer of 1986, in a small Scottish town, James and Tully ignite a brilliant friendship based on music, films and the rebel spirit. With school over and the locked world of their fathers before them, they rush towards the climax of their youth: a magical weekend in Manchester, the epicentre of everything that inspires them in working-class Britain. There, against the greatest soundtrack ever recorded, a vow is made: to go at life differently. Thirty years on, half a life away, the phone rings. Tully has news. Mayflies is a memorial to youth’s euphorias and to everyday tragedy. A tender goodbye to an old union, it discovers the joy and the costs of love

A magisterial and profoundly perceptive survey of Britain’s post-war role on the global stage, from Suez to Brexit. In 1962 the American statesman Dean Acheson famously charged that Britain had lost an empire and failed to find a new role. Nearly sixty years later the rebuke rings true again. Britain’s postwar search for its place in the world has vexed prime ministers and government since the nation's great victory in 1945: the cost of winning the war was giving up the empire. After the humiliation of Anthony Eden’s Suez expedition, Britain seemed for a time to have found an answer. Clinging to its self-image as a great island nation, it would serve as America’s best friend while acknowledging its geography by signing up to membership of the European Union. Never a comfortable balancing act, for forty years it appeared to work. In 2016 David Cameron called the Brexit referendum and blew it up. Award-winning journalist Philip Stephens paints a fascinating portrait of a nation struggling to reconcile its waning power with past glory. Drawing on decades of personal contact and interviews with senior politicians and diplomats in Britain, the United States and across the capitals of Europe, Britain Alone is a vivid account of a proud nation struggling to admit it is no longer a great power. It is an indispensable guide to how we arrived at the state we are in.

A definitive insight into the ever-influential world of Mark E. Smith and the Fall, bringing together previously unseen artwork, rare ephemera and handwritten material, alongside essays by a slate of fans. To 50,000 Fall Fans: please buy this inspired & inspiring, profound & provocative, beautiful & bonkers Book of Revelations, choc-stock-full of loving Acts by true Apostles, simultaneously both the scrapbook you wished you'd kept and a portal to futures & pasts, known & unknown, & a Fantastic Celebration of this Nation's Saving Grace.' DAVID PEACE 'Mind blowing... brilliant.' TIM BURGESS ’A container sized treasure trove bursting at the hinges with strangeness and wonder ... I strongly advise you to buy it.’ MAXINE PEAKE This is not a book about a rock band. This is not even a book about Mark E Smith. This is a book about The Fall group – or more precisely, their world. Over a prolific forty-year career, the Fall created a world that was influential, idiosyncratic and fiercely original; it was an education. Who wouldn’t want to be armed with a working knowledge of M.R. James, contemporary dance and Manchester City? Bringing together previously unseen artwork, rare ephemera and handwritten material, alongside essays by a slate of fans, EXCAVATE! is a vivid, definitive record – an illumination of the dark corners of the Fall’s wonderful and frightening world.

Set in Rhodesia in the 1960s, almost twenty years before Zimbabwe won independence and ended white minority rule, the novel’s heroine, Tambudzai Sigauke, embarks on her education. On her shoulders rest the economic hopes of her parents, siblings, and extended family, and within her burns the desire for “personhood,” to no longer be part of such an “undistinguished humanity.” Immediately acclaimed by Alice Walker and Doris Lessing, the book has come to be considered one of Africa’s most important novels of the twentieth century.' Madeleine Thien

The first in Rachel Cusk's critically-acclaimed trilogy, shortlisted for the Folio Prize and the Goldsmith Prize and longlisted for the IMPAC Prize. Read by Kristin Scott Thomas. Outline is a novel in ten conversations. Spare and lucid, it follows a novelist teaching a course in creative writing over an oppressively hot summer in Athens. She leads her student in storytelling exercises. She meets other writers for dinner. She goes swimming in the Ionian Sea with her seatmate from the place. The people she encounters speak volubly about themselves, their fantasies, anxieties, pet theories, regrets, and longings. And through these disclosures, a portrait of the narrator is drawn by contrast, a portrait of a woman learning to face great a great loss. Outline is the first book in a short and yet epic cycle – a masterful trilogy which will be remembered as one of the most significant achievements of our times. 'Outline succeeds powerfully. Among other things, it gets a great variety of human beings down on the page with both immediacy and depth; an elemental pleasure that makes the book as gripping to read as a thriller... A stellar accomplishment.' James Lasdun, Guardian

'The most vivid evocation of Bessie Smith I have ever read' - Ian Carr, BBC Music '[Bessie Smith] showed me the air and taught me how to fill it ... she's the reason I started singing, really' - Janis Joplin Bessie Smith: singer, icon, pioneer. Bessie Smith was born in Tennessee in 1894. Orphaned by the age of nine, she sang on street corners before becoming a big name in travelling shows. In 1923 she made her first recording for a new start-up called Columbia Records. It sold 780,000 copies, making her a star. Smith’s life was notoriously difficult: she drank pints of ‘bathtub gin’, got into violent fist fights, spent huge sums of money and had passionate love affairs with men and women. She once single-handedly fought off a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. As a young black girl growing up in Glasgow, Jackie Kay found in Bessie someone with whom she could identify and who she could idolise. In this remarkable book Kay mixes biography, fiction, poetry and prose to create an enthralling account of an extraordinary life.

Klara and the Sun is the first novel by Kazuo Ishiguro since he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 2017. AVAILABLE TO PREORDER NOW From the bestselling and Booker Prize winning author of Never Let me Go and The Remains of the Day, a stunning new novel - his first since winning the Nobel Prize in Literature - that asks, what does it mean to love? A thrilling feat of world-building, a novel of exquisite tenderness and impeccable restraint, Klara and the Sun is a magnificent achievement, and an international literary event.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE T. S. ELIOT PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA POETRY AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE FORWARD PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST COLLECTION SHORTLISTED FOR THE POLARI FIRST BOOK PRIZE In this intimate and vital debut, Richard Scott creates an uncompromising portrait of love and gay shame. Examining how trauma becomes a part of the language we use, Scott takes us back to our roots: childhood incidents, the violence our scars betray, forgotten forebears and histories. The hungers of sexual encounters are underscored by the risks that threaten when we give ourselves to or accept another. But the poems celebrate joy and tenderness, too, as in a sequence re-imagining the love poetry of Verlaine. The collection crescendos to Scott's tour de force, 'Oh My Soho!', where a night stroll under the street lamps of Soho Square becomes a search for true lineage, a reclamation of stolen ancestors, hope for healing, and, above all, the finding of our truest selves. Attachments area

DECEMBER 1938 Storm clouds hover once again over Europe Josephine Tey and Archie Penrose gather with friends for a Cornish Christmas, but two strange and brutal deaths on St Michael’s Mount – and the unexpected arrival of a world-famous film star, in need of sanctuary – interrupt the festivities. Cut off by the sea and a relentless blizzard, the hunt for a murderer begins. Pivoting on a real moment in history, the ninth novel in the Josephine Tey series draws on all the much-loved conventions of the Golden Age Christmas mystery, whilst giving them a thrilling contemporary twist. Buy Now: https://uk.bookshop.org/books/the-dead-of-winter-9780571353248/9780571353248

Journalist of the Year 2019 Amelia Gentleman talks about The Windrush Betrayal: Exposing the Hostile Environment, her acclaimed book on the Windrush scandal longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction and the Orwell Prize. ‘It is impossible to overstate the importance of this heartbreaking book.’ James O’Brien ‘Devastating . . . One of the most shameful episodes of our history is revealed.’ Claire Tomalin, New Statesman Books of the Year How do you pack for a one-way journey back to a country you left when you were eleven and have not visited for fifty years? Amelia Gentleman’s exposé of the Windrush scandal – where thousands of British citizens were wrongly classified as illegal immigrants with life-shattering consequences – shocked the nation and led to the resignation of Amber Rudd as Home Secretary. Here, Gentleman tells the full story for the first time. ‘It’s shocking to read about people who had given so much care to this country – nurses, NHS drivers, special needs teaching assistants – being treated so coldly… Reads like a Black Mirror-style dystopia.’ Sukhdev Sandhu, Observer Book of the Week ‘Reveals how one of the most shocking scandals of recent years came about while always giving voice to the people who matter most, the victims.’ Professor David Olusoga ‘Proves why independent journalism is so vital.’ Reni Eddo-Lodge Buy the book: Guardian Bookshop: https://guardianbookshop.com/the-windrush-betrayal-9781783351855.html Waterstones: https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-windrush-betrayal/amelia-gentleman/9781783351855 Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Windrush-Betrayal-Exposing-Hostile-Environment/dp/1783351853/ Audible:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Windrush-Betrayal-Exposing-Hostile-Environment/dp/B07XVPXMD1/

Welcome to After Fame – an ambitious and resonant engagement with the epigrams of the Roman poet Martial, which completes the loose trilogy of Sam Riviere’s process-derived works. It was Martial who first used the term ‘plagiarism’ in its modern sense as a kind of literary theft. Here, the notion is tested even further through the figure of a distracted scribe who, by means of various methods of transcription, including the use of machine translation and creative embellishment, presents a copy of Martial’s famous Book I unlike any other. These 118 poems cover timeless themes such as work, friendship, public life and sexual mores, and, as they unfold, are increasingly interrupted by reflections on authorship, technology, cultural complicity and the privileged, mediating role of the poet: all fixations of Martial’s work that still resonate today. Not strict translation, bona fide reproduction nor wholly original writing, After Fame challenges the integrity of such categories. So liberated, it dramatises the obscurity of its source, refraining from easy equivalences, while insisting on its contemporary relevance.

Melissa Harrison's The Stubborn Light of Things is Apple's top-rated nature podcast. Here is a selection of extracts from the series, which Melissa recorded in the spring, summer and autumn of 2020. It ties in with her book, The Stubborn Light of Things, a nature diary published in November 2020. Melissa Harrison is the acclaimed author of the novels At Hawthorn Time and All Among the Barley. Listen to the podcast here: https://melissaharrison.co.uk/podcast/ Find out about the book here: https://melissaharrison.co.uk/books/ Audio production and editing by Peter Rogers: https://twitter.com/whistlebump

Randomly Moving Particles is built from two long poems that form its opening and close, connected by three shorter pieces. The title poem, in a kaleidoscope of compelling scenes, engages with subjects that include migration, placement, loss, space exploration and current British and American politics. It is a clarifying action and reaction between terra and solar system, mundanity and possibility, taking us from the grit of road surfaces to the distant glimpses of satellites. The final poem, ‘How Do the Dead Walk’, combines mythic reach with acute observation of the familiar, in order to address issues of contemporary violence. It is altogether more dreamlike, even in its tangibly military moments, grasping as it does at phantoms and intermediate plains. Andrew Motion’s expansive new poetry collection is direct in its emotional appeal, ambitious in its scope, all the while retaining the cinematic vision and startling expression that so freshly lit the lines of his last, Essex Clay.

O Positive is the long-awaited debut collection of poetry from Joe Dunthorne, and it has all the appeal of his widely acclaimed fiction. Adopting a sunny, genial tone, Dunthorne lures the reader to darker places, exploring death and dread, failure and regret – the ‘lounge of our suffering’. Often, he catches us off-guard: a ‘whiplash’ effect where poems shift from laughter to slaughter in a moment. Impertinent owls, an immersive theatre troupe, ancient men from the Great War and idiot balloonists – such characters dramatise our human fancies and foibles, joining the protagonist in scenarios both humorously bizarre and all-too-familiar. These performances serve to probe and unpeel the layers of the self – all the way down to the raw.

Simon Hall reads from the opening of his history book Ten Days in Harlem: Fidel Castro and the Making of the 1960s. Rising star Simon Hall captures the spirit of the 1960s in ten days that revolutionised the Cold War: Fidel Castro's visit to New York. 'Hall has captured this catalytic moment like no one before. Anyone interested in the "Global Sixties" must read Ten Days in Harlem.' Van E. Gosse, Professor of History, Franklin & Marshall College New York City, September 1960. Fidel Castro - champion of the oppressed, scourge of colonialism, and leftist revolutionary - arrives for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly. His visit to the UN represents a golden opportunity to make his mark on the world stage. Fidel's shock arrival in Harlem is met with a rapturous reception from the local African American community. He holds court from the iconic Hotel Theresa as a succession of world leaders, black freedom fighters and counter-cultural luminaries - everyone from Nikita Khrushchev to Gamal Abdel Nasser, Malcolm X to Allen Ginsberg - come calling. Then, during his landmark address to the UN General Assembly - one of the longest speeches in the organisation's history - he promotes the politics of anti-imperialism with a fervour, and an audacity, that makes him an icon of the 1960s. In this unforgettable slice of modern history, Simon Hall reveals how these ten days were a foundational moment in the trajectory of the Cold War, a turning point in the history of anti-colonial struggle, and a launching pad for the social, cultural and political tumult of the decade that followed.

Simon Hall reads from the opening of his history book Ten Days in Harlem: Fidel Castro and the Making of the 1960s. Rising star Simon Hall captures the spirit of the 1960s in ten days that revolutionised the Cold War: Fidel Castro's visit to New York. 'Hall has captured this catalytic moment like no one before. Anyone interested in the "Global Sixties" must read Ten Days in Harlem.' Van E. Gosse, Professor of History, Franklin & Marshall College New York City, September 1960. Fidel Castro - champion of the oppressed, scourge of colonialism, and leftist revolutionary - arrives for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly. His visit to the UN represents a golden opportunity to make his mark on the world stage. Fidel's shock arrival in Harlem is met with a rapturous reception from the local African American community. He holds court from the iconic Hotel Theresa as a succession of world leaders, black freedom fighters and counter-cultural luminaries - everyone from Nikita Khrushchev to Gamal Abdel Nasser, Malcolm X to Allen Ginsberg - come calling. Then, during his landmark address to the UN General Assembly - one of the longest speeches in the organisation's history - he promotes the politics of anti-imperialism with a fervour, and an audacity, that makes him an icon of the 1960s. In this unforgettable slice of modern history, Simon Hall reveals how these ten days were a foundational moment in the trajectory of the Cold War, a turning point in the history of anti-colonial struggle, and a launching pad for the social, cultural and political tumult of the decade that followed.

Simon Hall reads from the opening of his history book Ten Days in Harlem: Fidel Castro and the Making of the 1960s. Rising star Simon Hall captures the spirit of the 1960s in ten days that revolutionised the Cold War: Fidel Castro's visit to New York. 'Hall has captured this catalytic moment like no one before. Anyone interested in the "Global Sixties" must read Ten Days in Harlem.' Van E. Gosse, Professor of History, Franklin & Marshall College New York City, September 1960. Fidel Castro - champion of the oppressed, scourge of colonialism, and leftist revolutionary - arrives for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly. His visit to the UN represents a golden opportunity to make his mark on the world stage. Fidel's shock arrival in Harlem is met with a rapturous reception from the local African American community. He holds court from the iconic Hotel Theresa as a succession of world leaders, black freedom fighters and counter-cultural luminaries - everyone from Nikita Khrushchev to Gamal Abdel Nasser, Malcolm X to Allen Ginsberg - come calling. Then, during his landmark address to the UN General Assembly - one of the longest speeches in the organisation's history - he promotes the politics of anti-imperialism with a fervour, and an audacity, that makes him an icon of the 1960s. In this unforgettable slice of modern history, Simon Hall reveals how these ten days were a foundational moment in the trajectory of the Cold War, a turning point in the history of anti-colonial struggle, and a launching pad for the social, cultural and political tumult of the decade that followed.

Simon Hall reads from the opening of his history book Ten Days in Harlem: Fidel Castro and the Making of the 1960s. Rising star Simon Hall captures the spirit of the 1960s in ten days that revolutionised the Cold War: Fidel Castro's visit to New York. 'Hall has captured this catalytic moment like no one before. Anyone interested in the "Global Sixties" must read Ten Days in Harlem.' Van E. Gosse, Professor of History, Franklin & Marshall College New York City, September 1960. Fidel Castro - champion of the oppressed, scourge of colonialism, and leftist revolutionary - arrives for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly. His visit to the UN represents a golden opportunity to make his mark on the world stage. Fidel's shock arrival in Harlem is met with a rapturous reception from the local African American community. He holds court from the iconic Hotel Theresa as a succession of world leaders, black freedom fighters and counter-cultural luminaries - everyone from Nikita Khrushchev to Gamal Abdel Nasser, Malcolm X to Allen Ginsberg - come calling. Then, during his landmark address to the UN General Assembly - one of the longest speeches in the organisation's history - he promotes the politics of anti-imperialism with a fervour, and an audacity, that makes him an icon of the 1960s. In this unforgettable slice of modern history, Simon Hall reveals how these ten days were a foundational moment in the trajectory of the Cold War, a turning point in the history of anti-colonial struggle, and a launching pad for the social, cultural and political tumult of the decade that followed.

Simon Hall reads from the opening of his history book Ten Days in Harlem: Fidel Castro and the Making of the 1960s. Rising star Simon Hall captures the spirit of the 1960s in ten days that revolutionised the Cold War: Fidel Castro's visit to New York. 'Hall has captured this catalytic moment like no one before. Anyone interested in the "Global Sixties" must read Ten Days in Harlem.' Van E. Gosse, Professor of History, Franklin & Marshall College New York City, September 1960. Fidel Castro - champion of the oppressed, scourge of colonialism, and leftist revolutionary - arrives for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly. His visit to the UN represents a golden opportunity to make his mark on the world stage. Fidel's shock arrival in Harlem is met with a rapturous reception from the local African American community. He holds court from the iconic Hotel Theresa as a succession of world leaders, black freedom fighters and counter-cultural luminaries - everyone from Nikita Khrushchev to Gamal Abdel Nasser, Malcolm X to Allen Ginsberg - come calling. Then, during his landmark address to the UN General Assembly - one of the longest speeches in the organisation's history - he promotes the politics of anti-imperialism with a fervour, and an audacity, that makes him an icon of the 1960s. In this unforgettable slice of modern history, Simon Hall reveals how these ten days were a foundational moment in the trajectory of the Cold War, a turning point in the history of anti-colonial struggle, and a launching pad for the social, cultural and political tumult of the decade that followed.

Simon Hall reads from the opening of his history book Ten Days in Harlem: Fidel Castro and the Making of the 1960s. Rising star Simon Hall captures the spirit of the 1960s in ten days that revolutionised the Cold War: Fidel Castro's visit to New York. 'Hall has captured this catalytic moment like no one before. Anyone interested in the "Global Sixties" must read Ten Days in Harlem.' Van E. Gosse, Professor of History, Franklin & Marshall College New York City, September 1960. Fidel Castro - champion of the oppressed, scourge of colonialism, and leftist revolutionary - arrives for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly. His visit to the UN represents a golden opportunity to make his mark on the world stage. Fidel's shock arrival in Harlem is met with a rapturous reception from the local African American community. He holds court from the iconic Hotel Theresa as a succession of world leaders, black freedom fighters and counter-cultural luminaries - everyone from Nikita Khrushchev to Gamal Abdel Nasser, Malcolm X to Allen Ginsberg - come calling. Then, during his landmark address to the UN General Assembly - one of the longest speeches in the organisation's history - he promotes the politics of anti-imperialism with a fervour, and an audacity, that makes him an icon of the 1960s. In this unforgettable slice of modern history, Simon Hall reveals how these ten days were a foundational moment in the trajectory of the Cold War, a turning point in the history of anti-colonial struggle, and a launching pad for the social, cultural and political tumult of the decade that followed.

Nicola Upson reads an extract from Sorry for the Dead, which is Longlisted for the CWA Sapere Books Historial Dagger 2020. Summer, 1915: a young woman falls to her death at Charleston Farmhouse on the Sussex Downs. But was it an accident? Twenty years later, Josephine Tey is faced with the accusation that it was murder, and that she was complicit in the crime. Can she clear her name and uncover the truth, exposing the darkest secrets of that apparently idyllic summer? 'Haunting . . . Superlative.' Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month 'A terrific novel.' A. N. Wilson Nicola Upson's debut novel, An Expert in Murder, was the first in a series of crime novels whose main character is Josephine Tey, who - along with Agatha Christie - was one of the masters of Britain's Golden Age of crime writing. The most recent book in the series, Nine Lessons, was shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger in 2018. BUY THE BOOK: Waterstones: https://www.waterstones.com/book/sorry-for-the-dead/nicola-upson/9780571337378 Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sorry-Dead-Josephine-Tey-8/dp/0571337376/ Foyles: https://www.foyles.co.uk/witem/fiction-poetry/sorry-for-the-dead,nicola-upson-nicola-upson-9780571337378 Hive: https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Nicola-Upson/Sorry-for-the-Dead/24940143 Ebook: Kindle: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sorry-Dead-Nicola-Upson-ebook/dp/B07V6RM6GK/

Adventurous and illuminating, Matthew Francis’s new poetry collection is full of flight, air and possibility. Read by the author. Matthew Francis’s latest collection celebrates the richness of nature and of our responses to it. The pleasures of summer are emblazoned in the colourful wings and evocative names of butterflies, while a nocturnal encounter with an earwig becomes a joyous incantation to the ‘witchy-beetle, forkin-robin’ of dialect. His love of history, embodied in his acclaimed Mandeville and The Mabinogi, gives rise to a sequence based on Robert Hooke’s microscopic observations. There are tributes to the poets Basho, Dafydd ap Gwilym and W. S. Graham, to fireworks, apple varieties, and hot toddies. And, in a moving elegy for a friend killed in a parachute accident, Francis shows us a vertiginous vision of a world where even the dead ‘sleep on the wing’.