Not Waving but Drowning and other poems is out on 10 October 2024 🐸
Announcing an iconic selection of poems from ‘the wildest poet of them all’.
Stevie Smith was not only a famous poet in her lifetime but a poet before her time, a radical eccentric who relished the performance of poetry as sung and spoken word. She asks the questions we don’t have the courage to ask, speaking for the lonely, the troubled and the trapped, and for any of us who at one time or another have found ourselves not waving but drowning.
Reading Smith’s work is to encounter an off-kilter version of the world that manages to be both familiar yet utterly surprising. Her poetry echoes through time: Sylvia Plath called herself a ‘desperate Smith addict’ and Loyle Carner named his second studio album after her best-loved poem.
Not Waving but Drowning and other poems is out on 10 October 2024 🐸
faber.co.uk/product/9780571391615-not-waving-but-drowning-and-other-poems/
💄'Darkly funny and startlingly contemporary.' Monica Heisey
💄 'I was floored: truly brilliant.' Meg Mason
💄 'Beautiful and tragic.' Sheena Patel
💄'I love this novel so much . . . I can’t understand how it’s not a classic we’ve known and read all our lives.' Polly Samson
Ex-wife is out now
Two books that inspired Nilesha Chauvet's debut novel The Revenge of Rita Marsh
What do Notes on a Scandal by Zoë Heller and Misery by Stephen King have in common? They both inspired Nilesha Chauvet in writing her debut novel, The Revenge of Rita Marsh. Here's Nilesha to explain why 📚
The Unfinished Harauld Hughes – audiobook extract
The audiobook edition of The Unfinished Harauld Hughes – out 1 October – is read by Richard Ayoade and stars Noel Fielding, Lydia Fox, Sally Hawkins, Stephen Merchant, David Mitchell and Chris Morris, with music by Alex Turner.
Listen now to an exclusive extract, read by Ayoade and featuring Chris Morris as Keith.
The Unfinished Harauld Hughes
We are excited to announce The Unfinished Harauld Hughes, Richard Ayoade's fictional quest to rescue Harauld Hughes – the practically mythical mid-century playwright – from obscurity.
The gifted filmmaker, corduroy activist and amateur dentist, Richard Ayoade, first chanced upon a copy of The Two-Hander Trilogy by Harauld Hughes in a second-hand bookshop. At first startled by his uncanny resemblance to the author’s photo, he opened the volume and was electrified. Terse, aggressive, and elliptical, what was true of Ayoade was also true of Hughes’s writing, which encompassed stage, screen, and some of the shortest poems ever published.
Ayoade embarked on a documentary to understand the unfathomable collapse of Hughes’s final film O Bedlam! O Bedlam!, taking us deep inside the most furious British writer since the Boer War.
The Unfinished Harauld Hughes is the story of the story of that quest.
Coming in hardback 3 October, you can pre-order it now.
linktr.ee/harauldhughes
[Animation features music by Alex Turner. Cover portrait by James Lloyd.]
🚢Introducing Death on Ice by R. O. Thorp🚢
'A brilliant modern cosy . . . pure class from start to finish.' Ian Moore
Meet the Blanchard twins:
Rose is practical, sharp, and protective. Specialty: manta rays.
Finn is too sweet and kind for his own good. Specialty: sharks.
Rose and Finn are looking for sharks on the sea bed. When they return to the Dauphin they make a terrible discovery: their colleague has been murdered on the ice – with a harpoon that should never have been there. Everyone else on the luxury cruise ship – the wealthy passengers, the researchers hard at work, the tight-knit crew and their strangely calm Captain – were all aboard at the time, so they are all under suspicion. Rose and Finn were the only two at sea, and they're miles from anywhere, so it's up to them to investigate.
On scientific problems, they are a brilliant team – but can the Blanchard twins solve a murder?
Death on Ice by R. O. Thorp is out 13 February 2025.
From the legendary producer and record label boss Joe Boyd, comes a new, definitive study of global music, And the Roots of Rhythm Remain.
‘What an amazing book! I doubt I’ll ever read a better account of the history and sociology of popular music than this one.' Brian Eno
‘Profound… and beyond.’ Robert Plant
‘A gift to the world. Blow your mind and your speakers.’ Cerys Matthews
‘One only hopes that this will be taught in schools.’ Ry Cooder
Out 29 August. Pre-order now.
linktr.ee/andtherootsofrhythmremain
Happiness Falls is a story from Angie Kim about family, the pursuit of happiness and how far we go to protect the ones we love.
Mia Parkson's life is turned upside down when her stay-at-home dad, the family's anchor, goes missing. The only witness? Eugene - her younger, nonspeaking teenage brother.
Happiness Falls is both an unforgettable missing-person mystery and an insightful take on language, bias and family dynamics. It's out now in paperback.
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The Two Loves of Sophie Strom by Sam Taylor
'Max Spiegelman couldn't be sure if what he remembered was real or a dream.'
Looking for your next historical fiction read? Listen to an exclusive audiobook extract from the opening of The Two Loves of Sophie Strom by Sam Taylor, which begins in 1930s Vienna 🎧
audible.co.uk/pd/The-Two-Loves-of-Sophie-Strom-Audiobook/B0CXJQSFMW
Morocco, 1968. The air is electric. Anything feels possible . . .
Discover the sun-soaked new novel from Leïla Slimani, where one family’s life entwines with a seismic moment in history.
Called 'beautifully atmospheric' by the Financial Times and 'engrossing' by the Times, Watch Us Dance is out today in paperback 🍊
Republic by Alice Hunt
We're delighted to reveal the cover for Republic: Britain's Revolutionary Decade, 1649-1660 by Alice Hunt.
Events moved fast in the 1650s. Something cataclysmic happened every year, something that would thrust the newly formed republic, its people and its eventual 'Lord Protector' Oliver Cromwell, in an entirely new direction. It was a time of bewildering change and uncertainty, but it was also a time of innovation and opportunity. And, for the men and women who lived through these years, this period was certainly not an 'interregnum'. The restoration of Charles II in 1660 was not inevitable, nor was it welcomed by everyone.
England's unique republican experiment - imposed on Scotland and Ireland, too - may have been shortlived, but it has had a lasting impact on British monarchy, politics, religion and culture, and on the story the British continue to tell about themselves. It is a period that, for a long time, history chose to forget, or recalled as a failure. Here, in thrilling detail, Alice Hunt brings the republic and its extraordinary cast of characters, from politicians to poets and prophets, back to life.
Publishing 26 September
Pre-order here: https://www.hatchards.co.uk/book/republic/alice-hunt/9780571303199
'Suddenly I realised what had been bothering my head. I was thinking of Boysie.'
The audiobook for The Lost Love Songs of Boysie Singh by Ingrid Persaud is narrated by four different women. Here's an extract from the first woman we meet – Rosie.
audible.co.uk/pd/The-Lost-Love-Songs-of-Boysie-Singh-Audiobook/B0CW7D6JKB
In wonderful news, Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy has been shortlisted for the 2024 #WomensPrize for Fiction!
Congratulations to all the shortlisted authors✨
In The Kellerby Code, Edward Jevons caters to his perfectly awful ‘best pals’ Robert and Stanza in a butler-style role – all part of his efforts to fit into a world he can't afford and to which he doesn't belong. Here's author Jonny Sweet on his top literary butlers 🛎️
Introducing A Year of Living Curiously: 365 Things Really Worth Knowing.
🪐What would happen to me in a black hole?
🎩 Would Mr Darcy make a good life partner?
🌧 Is Everything Getting Worse?
Dip into A Year of Living Curiously by E. Foley and B. Coates and you’ll discover the answers.
From the authors of What Would Boudicca Do? comes this clever companion full of brilliant nuggets of wisdom, from startling science to gripping histories and essential psychology. Spend just three minutes a day in its company and you’ll end your year full of wonder and just that little bit wiser . . .
Out November 2024 and available to pre-order now.
'One of the most exciting new voices in crime fiction.' Erin Kelly
On the last Saturday in August, politicos and socialites trade tidbits of gossip and sips of Pimm's under the tasteful bunting of a Richmond garden party. They'd never guess that the police are just a stone's throw away, pulling a body out of the river Thames.
The drowning appears to be a tragic accident - until Detective Caius Beauchamp gets an unexpected tip. The victim, it seems, had enemies in high places. Did being on the wrong side of them get her killed?
The In Crowd by Charlotte Vassell is available now from all good bookshops 🔎
Lord of the Flies: The Graphic Novel
Introducing the world’s first graphic novel of Lord of the Flies. A masterpiece reimagined.
Before The Stand and The Hunger Games, before Battle Royale and Yellowjackets, there was Lord of the Flies. On the seventieth anniversary of William Golding’s iconic novel comes the stunning adaptation from acclaimed artist, Aimée de Jongh.
A plane crashes on a desert island. The only survivors: a group of schoolboys. By day, they explore the dazzling beaches. By night, they are haunted by nightmares of a primitive beast and of what they’ve lost.
'The first book that reached out of the pages and seized me by the throat.' Stephen King
Coming September 2024.
uk.bookshop.org/p/books/lord-of-the-flies-the-graphic-novel-william-golding/7647562
