At home with Faber

First title of 2012 - The Poisonwood Bible

2012-01-04T16:19:00.000Z

The Poisonwood Bible tells the story of an American family in the Congo during a time of tremendous political and social upheaval. The story is told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them all they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it - from garden seeds to Scripture - is calamitously transformed on African soil. This tale of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction, over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa, is set against one of history's most dramatic political parables. The Poisonwood Bible dances between the darkly comic human failings and inspiring poetic justices of our times. In a compelling exploration of religion, conscience, imperialist arrogance, and the many paths to redemption, Barbara Kingsolver has written a novel of overwhelming power and passion.

Download The Poisonwood Bible Reading Guide

Red Plenty - August 2011

2011-08-13T16:06:00.001+01:00

The 'At home with Faber' title for August 2011 is Red Plenty by Francis Spufford, our first non-fiction title (or is it a novel? You decide).

Remember to share your views on the book via this blog, we look forward to reading your comments.

For more info click on the links below

http://www.redplenty.com/Front_page.html

http://www.faber.co.uk/work/red-plenty/9780571225231/

From the author of The Observations

2011-05-18T12:10:00.000+01:00

Our next title is 'Gillespie and I' by Jane Harris. This book was published at the start of May, in fact it is so new the library copies aren't even in stock yet, so At home with Faber members are getting an exclusive.

Remember to let us know what you think: Did you enjoy it? How does it compare with The Observations? Did you like the cover?

http://www.faber.co.uk/work/gillespie-and-i/9780571275168/

Something to be Smiley about...

2011-02-17T13:16:00.000Z

Margaret Mayfield is nearly an old maid at twenty-seven when she marries Captain Andrew Jackson Jefferson Early. He’s the most famous man their Missouri town has ever produced: a naval officer and an astronomer - a genius who, according to the local paper, has changed the universe. Margaret’s mother calls the match ‘a piece of luck’.

Yet Andrew confounds Margaret’s expectations from the moment their train leaves for his naval base in San Francisco, and soon she realizes that his devotion to science leaves little room for anything, or anyone, else. She stands by him through tragedies both personal and those they share with the nation. But as World War II approaches, Andrew’s obsessions take a darker turn, forcing Margaret to reconsider the life she’d so carefully constructed.

Private Life is a portrait of marriage and the mysteries that endure even in lives lived side by side, a riveting historical panorama, and an unforgettable novel from one of our finest storytellers.

Merry Christmas Everyone

2010-12-21T16:49:00.000Z

A delivery of this lovely little hardback book has arrived just in time for Christmas.

Paul Auster’s charming Christmas fable has found new life in this beautifully illustrated edition.

It begins with a dilemma: a writer has been asked by the New York Times to produce a story that will appear in the paper on Christmas morning. The man agrees, but he has a problem: how do you write an unsentimental Christmas story? He unburdens himself to his friend at the local cigar shop, a colourful character called Auggie Wren. ‘A Christmas story? Is that all?’ says Auggie, before striking a deal. For the price of lunch he’ll pass on ‘the best Christmas story you’ve ever heard. And I guarantee every word of it is true.’

What follows is utterly beguiling, a story - involving a blind woman, a lost wallet and a Christmas dinner - in which everything is turned upside down

November title: Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro

2010-11-18T10:21:00.000Z

In one of the most acclaimed and original novels of recent years, Kazuo Ishiguro imagines the lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewered version of contemporary England.

Narrated by Kathy, now 31, Never Let Me Go hauntingly dramatises her attempts to come to terms with her childhood at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham School, and with the fate that has always awaited her and her closest friends in the wider world.

A story of love, friendship and memory, Never Let Me Go is charged throughout with a sense of the fragility of life.

Now a major movie starring Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield

The Observations by Jane Harris

2010-09-19T22:45:00.001+01:00

Open publication - Free publishing - More reading

Our next title...

2010-08-10T10:16:00.000+01:00

The next At home with Faber title is Invisible by Paul Auster.

One of America's greatest novelists dazzlingly reinvents the coming-of-age story in his most passionate and surprising book to date.

Sinuously constructed in four interlocking parts, Paul Auster's fifteenth novel opens in New York City in the spring of 1967, when twenty-year-old Adam Walker, an aspiring poet and student at Columbia University, meets the enigmatic Frenchman Rudolf Born and his silent and seductive girfriend, Margot. Before long, Walker finds himself caught in a perverse triangle that leads to a sudden, shocking act of violence that will alter the course of his life.

Three different narrators tell the story of Invisible, a novel that travels in time from 1967 to 2007 and moves from Morningside Heights, to the Left Bank of Paris, to a remote island in the Caribbean. It is a book of youthful rage, unbridled sexual hunger, and a relentless quest for justice.

With uncompromising insight, Auster takes us into the shadowy borderland between truth and memory, between authorship and identity, to produce a work of unforgettable power that confirms his reputation as 'one of America's most spectacularly inventive writers.'

More from Barbara

2010-07-28T15:29:00.000+01:00

Click on the link below for a podcast of Barbara Kingsolver discussing The Lacuna and also a Q & A with the Orange Prize winning author

http://www.thethoughtfox.co.uk/?p=2757

At home with Faber members (not at home)

2010-07-17T14:46:00.000+01:00

Here are a few of the At home with Faber members who gathered together recently to celebrate the successful launch of the group.

With over 30 members so far the response has been tremendous, huge thanks to everyone who has signed up. If you would like to join these lovely ladies in becoming a member please do get in touch. Don't worry, having your photo taken isn't compulsory.

A slow start?

2010-07-13T13:49:00.000+01:00

Good to see comments about The Lacuna starting to come in. We have had a few via Twitter too, mainly about the slow pace during the first 200 pages or so.

The word Lacuna seems to be new to several people, so here are the OED online definitions:

1. In a manuscript, an inscription, the text of an author: A hiatus, blank, missing portion. Also transf.

1663 SIR R. MORAY in Lauderd. Papers (Camden) I. 181 You do well to leave no Lacunas in your letters. 1694 GIBSON in Lett. Lit. Men (Camden) 228 The lacuna of his behaviour in Holland, Dr. Gregory perhaps may be able to make up. 1851 D. WILSON Preh. Ann. IV. v. (1863) II. 326 The context which fills up the numerous lacunae of the time-worn inscription. 1875 MAINE Hist. Inst. ix. 256 The description given..is followed by a lacuna in the manuscript. 1892 ZANGWILL Bow Myst. 147 There were various lacunæ and hypotheses in the case for the defence.

2. Chiefly in physical science: A gap, an empty space, spot, or cavity. a. gen.

1872 PROCTOR Ess. Astron. xxiv. 303 The gaps and lacunae are left relatively clear of lucid stars. 1879 RUTLEY Study Rocks x. 107 Fluid lacunae..are of frequent occurrence in nepheline. 1880 Sat. Rev. 15 May 637 The curious lacuna in the field of vision, known as the blind spot.

b. Anat. ‘A mucous follicle; also, a space in the connective tissue giving origin to a lymphatic’ (Syd. Soc. Lex. 1888).

1706 PHILLIPS (ed. Kersey), Lacunæ are certain small Pores or Passages in the Neck of the Womb. 1722 QUINCY Lex. Physico-Med. (ed. 2) 175 Between this Muscle [Sphincter] and the inner membrane of the Vagina, there are several little Glands, whose excretory Ducts are called Lacunæ. 1874 VAN BUREN Dis. Genit. Org. 77 Inflammation seals the orifice of the follicle and the lacuna is converted into a cyst containing pus.

c. Anat. One of the small cavities in the bone substance which contain the bone corpuscles or osteoblasts (Syd. Soc. Lex. 1888).

1845 TODD & BOWMAN Phys. Anat. I. 109 They [pores] soon arrange themselves in sets, each of which..discharges itself into a small cavity or lacuna. 1859 [see LACUNAL a.]. 1867 J. HOGG Microsc. I. ii. 57 The observation of..the Haversian canals and the lacunæ of bones.

d. Zool. One of the spaces left among the tissues of the lower animals, which serve in place of vessels for the circulation of the body fluids.

1867 J. HOGG Microsc. II. iii. 566 Minute capillary ramifications [in flukes] terminating in small oval shaped sacs or lacunæ.

e. Bot. An air-space in the cellular tissue of plants, an air-cell. Also, a small pit or depression on the upper surface of the thallus of lichens.

1836 LOUDON Encycl. Plants 948 [Lichens] Lacunæ are small hollows or pits on the upper surface of the frond. 1856 in HENSLOW Dict. Bot. Terms. 1874 COOKE Fungi 41 In Tuburcinia, the minute cells are compacted into a hollow sphere, having lacunæ communicating with the interior.

Access the OED from home with your library membership number http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/lclogin

Monday Night Murders

2010-07-12T12:07:00.001+01:00

Monday Night Murders, the Orkney Library crime reading group, is currently reading Eye of the Red Tsar by Sam Eastland. This is the debut novel by an author of whom the Faber website says 'Sam Eastland is the pseudonym of a British writer who lives in the United States'. How mysterious! Anyone know who it is? The Monday Night Murders gang will be encouraged to leave their comments on this blog, please welcome them with open arms. Or friendly mouses, or whatever the online equivalent of open arms is.

If any of the At home with Faber group would like to try this book please let us know and we will get a copy for you when the crime lot have discussed it.

About the book:

Inspector Pekkala - known as the Emerald Eye - was once the most famous detective in all Russia, the favourite of the Tsar. Now he is the prisoner of the men he once hunted.

Like millions of others, he has been sent to the gulags in Siberia and, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, he is as good as dead. But a reprieve comes when he is summoned by Stalin himself to investigate a crime. His mission - to uncover the men who really killed the Tsar and his family, and to locate the Tsar's treasure. The reward for success will be his freedom and the chance to re-unite with the woman he would have married if the Revolution had not torn them apart. The price of failure - death.

Set against the backdrop of the paranoid and brutal country that Russia became under the rule of Stalin, Eye of the Red Tsar introduces a compelling new figure to readers of crime fiction

There is also a rather good website for the detective featured in the novel http://www.inspectorpekkala.com/

Not sure what to comment on? Take a look at the Faber reading guide for The Lacuna

2010-07-07T22:46:00.001+01:00

Open publication - Free publishing

Let the reading begin

2010-06-30T11:46:00.002+01:00

The day has finally arrived - the first batch of At home with Faber titles have been sent out or are waiting collection. We hope you all enjoy taking part in this online reading group, the response has been fantastic so far, with our 25th member signing up this morning. If you don't get a copy straight away, don't worry, we will get one to you as soon as they start coming back in.

Not only can you add your comments to this blog, but you can also leave them on our Facebook page, or if you are on Twitter and would like to comment on our books please add the hashtag #ahwf

Enjoy The Lacuna and remember to let us know what you think of it.

Our first title is...

2010-06-21T15:53:00.003+01:00

We are delighted to announce that Barbara Kingsolver's Orange Prize winning novel The Lacuna is the first At home with Faber title.

The Lacuna is the heartbreaking story of a man’s search for safety of a man torn beween the warm heart of Mexico and the cold embrace of 1950s McCarthyite America.

Born in the U.S. and reared in Mexico, Harrison Shepherd is a liability to his social-climbing flapper mother, Salomé. Making himself useful in the household of the famed Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, and exiled Bolshevik leader Lev Trotsky, young Shepherd inadvertently casts his lot with art and revolution. A violent upheaval sends him north to a nation newly caught up in World War II. In the mountain city of Asheville, North Carolina he remakes himself in America’s hopeful image. But political winds continue to throw him between north and south, in a plot that turns many times on the unspeakable breach – the lacuna – between truth and public presumption

On your marks...

2010-06-18T10:01:00.002+01:00

We are almost ready to begin our online reading extravaganza. Had a fantastic response so far, delighted so many of you are wanting to take part. Books are on their way to Orkney so we'll be ready to send out the first title soon. Watch this space...

Orkney Library and Archive presents 'At home with Faber'

2010-06-16T11:53:00.002+01:00

If you would like to be part of a reading group that does not have any meetings then you might be interested in At home with Faber.

Orkney Library & Archive has teamed up with publishers Faber & Faber to launch a new online reading group, which you can be involved in without leaving the comfort of your home. This makes it perfect for people living on the isles, or for those who simply do not have the time to go to meetings.

Library Assistant Stewart Bain explains ‘The library runs a number of very successful reading groups; Kirkwall and Stromness groups have both been running for over five years, and the Monday Night Murders crime reading group has just celebrated its first birthday’

‘We have many users who like to borrow reading group titles but for various reasons don’t come to the meetings. As part of Reader Development in the library we wanted to give as many people as possible the chance to share their views on books with others. Because we already have a blog, and use Twitter and Facebook, an online reading group seemed the obvious next step’.

‘I met Susan Holmes from Faber at an event in Glasgow last year, got in touch with her about the possibility of an online reading group, and At home with Faber was the result. We are delighted to give people throughout Orkney the chance to read, and exchange opinions on, new and classic titles from this prestigious publisher’.

If you take part in At home with Faber you will get a new book posted to you every month, which can be read at your own pace, there is no deadline to meet. Comments on the title can then be left on the At home with Faber blog http://athomewithfaber.blogspot.com, or using e-mail, Twitter and the library Facebook page.

Susan Holmes says 'Through the use of social media, At home with Faber brings lively book-related conversation to people unable to attend reading group meetings. I'm thrilled Faber has been given the opportunity to work with Stewart and the Orkney Library team on this innovative and exciting new project.'

For more information, or to register your interest, please e-mail reading.group@orkneylibrary.org.uk or phone Stewart at Kirkwall Library on 873166.