Sebastian Faulks Popular Books

Sebastian Faulks Biography & Facts

Sebastian Charles Faulks (born 20 April 1953) is a British novelist, journalist and broadcaster. He is best known for his historical novels set in France – The Girl at the Lion d'Or, Birdsong and Charlotte Gray. He has also published novels with a contemporary setting, most recently A Week in December (2009) and Paris Echo, (2018) and a James Bond continuation novel, Devil May Care (2008), as well as a continuation of P. G. Wodehouse's Jeeves series, Jeeves and the Wedding Bells (2013). He was a team captain on BBC Radio 4 literary quiz The Write Stuff. Biography Early life Faulks was born on 20 April 1953 in Donnington, Berkshire, to Peter Faulks and Pamela (née Lawless). His father was a decorated soldier (he won the Military Cross), who later became a solicitor and circuit judge. His brother Edward Faulks, Baron Faulks KC, a barrister, became a Conservative Government Minister in January 2014 in the Ministry of Justice. His uncle was Sir Neville Faulks, a High Court judge. He was educated at Elstree School, Reading, and went on to Wellington College, Berkshire. He read English at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, of which he was made an honorary fellow in 2008. Whilst at Cambridge he participated in University Challenge, in which Emmanuel College lost in the opening round. Faulks commented that his team was most probably hampered by a trip to the pub before the show, as recommended by the show's producer. Career After graduating, Faulks worked as a teacher at a private school in Camden Town, and then as a journalist for the Daily and Sunday Telegraph. Faulks's first novel, A Trick of the Light, was published in 1984. He continued to work as a journalist, becoming the first literary editor of The Independent in 1986. He became deputy editor of the Independent on Sunday in 1989; in the same year he published The Girl at the Lion d'Or, the first of his historical novels set in France. In 1991 he left The Independent. He wrote for various newspapers as a freelancer for the next ten years.Following the success of Birdsong (1993), Faulks quit journalism to write full-time. He has since published eight novels, the most recent being Where My Heart Used to Beat (2015), Paris Echo (2018) and Snow Country (2021). Faulks was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1993 and appointed CBE for services to literature in 2002.Faulks appears regularly on British TV and radio. He was a regular team captain on BBC Radio 4's literary quiz The Write Stuff (1998–2014). The quiz involves the panellists each week writing a pastiche of the work of a selected author; Faulks has published a collection of his efforts as a book, Pistache (2006), which was described in The Scotsman as "a little treasure of a book. Faulks can catch, and caricature, another writers' fingerprints and foibles with a delicious precision that only a deep love of writing can teach". In 2011 Faulks presented a four-part BBC Two series called Faulks on Fiction, looking at the British novel and its characters. He also wrote a series tie-in book of the same name. Personal life Faulks married Veronica (née Youlten) in 1989. They have two sons, William and Arthur, born 1990 and 1996 respectively, and one daughter, Holly, born 1992. Faulks is a fan of West Ham United football club. Debrett's lists his recreations as tennis and wine.A longtime cricket fan and player, Faulks is a member of the Authors XI cricket team.In August 2014, Faulks was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue.From 2013 to 2018, he sat on the Government Advisory Group for the Commemoration of the First World War. Novels The Literary Review has said that "Faulks has the rare gift of being popular and literary at the same time"; The Sunday Telegraph called him "One of the most impressive novelists of his generation ... who is growing in authority with every book". Faulks's 2005 novel, Human Traces, was described by Trevor Nunn as "A masterpiece, one of the great novels of this or any other century."Faulks is best known for his three novels set in early twentieth-century France.The first, The Girl at the Lion d'Or, was published in 1989. This was followed by Birdsong (1993), and Charlotte Gray (1998). The latter two were best-sellers, and Charlotte Gray was shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In April 2003 Birdsong came 13th in the BBC's Big Read initiative which aimed to identify Britain's best loved novels.In 2007, Faulks published Engleby. Set in Cambridge in the 1970s, it is narrated by Cambridge University fresher Mike Engleby. Engleby is a loner, and the reader is led to suspect that he may be unreliable, particularly when a fellow student disappears. Faulks says of the novel's genesis, "I woke up one morning with this guy's voice in my head. And he was just talking, dictating, almost. And when I got to work, I wrote it down. I didn't know what the hell was going on; this wasn't an idea for a book". It was remarked upon as a change of direction for Faulks, both in terms of the near-contemporary setting and in the decision to use a first-person narrator. The Daily Telegraph said the book was "distinguished by a remarkable intellectual energy: a narrative verve, technical mastery of the possibilities of the novel form and vivid sense of the tragic contingency of human life."To mark the 2008 centenary of Ian Fleming's birth, the author's estate in 2006 commissioned Faulks to write a new James Bond novel. Faulks has said of the commission: "I'd just finished Human Traces and it seemed ridiculous. You've just spent five years in a Victorian lunatic asylum and then you go on to James Bond. But I think their hope is they'll get two markets. The more I think about it, the more I think it was clever of them, because the mismatch is intriguing". The result, Devil May Care, became an immediate best-seller in the UK, selling 44,093 hardback copies within 4 days of release. The Observer's review of the novel stated: "Faulks has done in some ways an absolutely sterling job. He has resisted pastiche", and blamed the book's weaknesses on the character of Bond as created by Fleming. Mark Lawson, writing in The Guardian, praised it as "a smart and enjoyable act of literary resurrection. Among the now 33 post-Fleming Bonds, this must surely compete with Kingsley Amis's for the title of the best".Faulks's 2009 novel, A Week in December, takes place in the seven days leading up to Christmas in December 2007. It focuses on the lives of a varied cast of characters living in London; Faulks himself has described the novel as "Dickensian" and cites Bleak House and Our Mutual Friend as influences, as well as New York novelists such as Tom Wolfe and Jay McInerney. The book was partly a response to the banking crisis. He chose to set it specifically in 2007 because "the whole world had changed: the banks were collapsing, we wer.... Discover the Sebastian Faulks popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Sebastian Faulks books.

Best Seller Sebastian Faulks Books of 2024

  • Agricola and Germania synopsis, comments

    Agricola and Germania

    Tacitus

    The Agricola is both a portrait of Julius Agricola the most famous governor of Roman Britain and Tacitus' wellloved and respected fatherinlaw and the first detailed account of Br...

  • Meltdown synopsis, comments

    Meltdown

    Ben Elton

    For amiable City trader Jimmy Corby money was the new Rock n' Roll. His whole life was a party, adrenaline charged and cocaine fuelled. If he hadn't met Monica he would probably h...

  • The War with Hannibal synopsis, comments

    The War with Hannibal

    Livy

    In The War with Hannibal, Livy (59 BCAD 17) chronicles the events of the Second Punic War between Rome and Carthage, until the Battle of Zama in 202 BC. He vividly recreates the im...

  • The Rise of the Roman Empire synopsis, comments

    The Rise of the Roman Empire

    Polybius & Ian Scott-Kilvert

    The Greek statesman Polybius (c.200–118 BC) wrote his account of the relentless growth of the Roman Empire in order to help his fellow countrymen understand how their world came to...

  • Fall of the Roman Republic synopsis, comments

    Fall of the Roman Republic

    Plutarch & Rex Warner

    Dramatic artist, natural scientist and philosopher, Plutarch is widely regarded as the most significant historian of his era, writing sharp and succinct accounts of the greatest po...

  • Memoirs from Beyond the Tomb synopsis, comments

    Memoirs from Beyond the Tomb

    François-René de Chateaubriand

    The most enjoyable, glamorous and gripping of all 19thcentury autobiographies a tumultuous account of France hit by wave after wave of revolutionsMemoirs from Beyond the Tomb is t...

  • The Shadow of War synopsis, comments

    The Shadow of War

    Stewart Binns

    The Shadow of War is the first novel in Stewart Binns's new series which will see a book release for each year of the First World War.June 1914. The beginning of another long, pros...

  • Paris Echo synopsis, comments

    Paris Echo

    Sebastian Faulks

    “Cunningly crafted. . . . France’s unquiet histories are brought to life by a master storyteller.” Financial Times (UK)A story of resistance, complicity, and an unlikely, transform...

  • The Penguin Book Of Spanish Verse synopsis, comments

    The Penguin Book Of Spanish Verse

    Penguin Books Ltd

    'You have dark eyes. Gleams there that promise darkness'. Spanish poetry is astonishing in its richness and variety. This anthology covers the two great flowerings of Spanish verse...

  • Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves synopsis, comments

    Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves

    Rachel Malik

    SHORTLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE 2018'A surprisingly touching account of hidden lives forced out of the shadows' Sunday TimesOne day in 1940 Rene Hargreaves walks out on her ...

  • Vanity Fair synopsis, comments

    Vanity Fair

    William Makepeace Thackeray

    The classic novel of 'villainy, crime, merriment, lovemaking, jilting, laughing, cheating, fighting and dancing', soon to be a major new ITV series from the producers of Poldark, V...

  • Ancient Worlds synopsis, comments

    Ancient Worlds

    Richard Miles

    Across the Middle East, the Mediterranean and the Nile Delta, aweinspiring, monstrous ruins are scattered across the landscape vast palaces, temples, fortresses, shattered statues...

  • Rome and the Mediterranean synopsis, comments

    Rome and the Mediterranean

    Livy

    Books XXXI to XLV cover the years from 201 b.c. to 167 b.c., when Rome emerged as ruler of the Mediterranean.

  • The Enchanted April synopsis, comments

    The Enchanted April

    Elizabeth Von Arnim

    'This delicious confection will work its magic on all' Daily TelegraphThe discreet advertisement in The Times, addressed 'To Those who Appreciate Wistaria and Sunshine', offers a ...

  • The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry synopsis, comments

    The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry

    Matthew George Walter

    This anthology reflects the diversity of voices it contains: the poems are arranged thematically and the themes reflect the different experiences of war not just for the soldiers b...

  • Looking for the Possible Dance synopsis, comments

    Looking for the Possible Dance

    A.L. Kennedy

    Mary Margaret Hamilton was educated in Scotland. She was born there too. These may not have been the best possible options, but they were the only ones on offer at the time. Althou...

  • Murder Trials synopsis, comments

    Murder Trials

    Cicero

    Cicero's speeches "In Defence of Sextus Roscius of Amerina," "In Defence of Aulus Cluentius Habitus," "In Defence of Gaius Rabirius," "Note on the Speeches in Defence of Caelius an...

  • The Civil Wars synopsis, comments

    The Civil Wars

    Appian & John Carter

    Taken from Appian's Roman History, the five books collected here form the sole surviving continuous historical narrative of the era between 13335 BC a time of anarchy and instabil...

  • Bitter synopsis, comments

    Bitter

    Francesca Jakobi

    'A novel to detonate the heart. Fans of Gail Honeyman and Joanna Cannon will love Bitter' A.J. Finn, author of The Woman in the Window 'As gripping as Zoe Heller's Notes on A Scan...

  • Selected Letters synopsis, comments

    Selected Letters

    Cicero

    The greatest orator in Roman history, Marcus Tullius Cicero remained one of the republic's chief supporters throughout his life, guided by profound political beliefs that illuminat...

  • The Burning Boys synopsis, comments

    The Burning Boys

    John Fuller

    When David's mother is killed in the Blitz he moves to a new life in Lancashire with his young aunt Jean. As he watches the adult world around him, a fighter pilot wakes to dis...

  • The Secret History synopsis, comments

    The Secret History

    Procopius, Peter Sarris & G. Williamson

    A trusted member of the Byzantine establishment, Procopius was the Empire's official chronicler, and his History of the Wars of Justinian proclaimed the strength and wisdom of the ...

  • The Conquest of Gaul synopsis, comments

    The Conquest of Gaul

    Julius Caesar, Jane Gardner & S. Handford

    Between 58 and 50BC Caesar conquered most of the area now covered by France, Belgium and Switzerland, and twice invaded Britain. This is the record of his campaigns.Caesar's narrat...

  • The Darkness and the Thunder synopsis, comments

    The Darkness and the Thunder

    Stewart Binns

    The second in Stewart Binns' acclaimed Great War Series, The Darkness and the Thunder is a sweeping story of war following five families through the terrifying conditions of the We...

  • The Penguin Book of First World War Stories synopsis, comments

    The Penguin Book of First World War Stories

    Ann-Marie Einhaus & Barbara Korte

    An anthology of Great War short stories by British writers, both famous and lesserknown authors, men and women, during the war and after its end. These stories are able to illustra...

  • The Later Roman Empire synopsis, comments

    The Later Roman Empire

    Ammianus Marcellinus

    Ammianus Marcellinus was the last great Roman historian, and his writings rank alongside those of Livy and Tacitus. The Later Roman Empire chronicles a period of twentyfive years d...

  • Monsieur Ka synopsis, comments

    Monsieur Ka

    Vesna Goldsworthy

    'A beautiful haunting novel… looking at a familiar London through a frosty, snowy lens. Wonderful' Caryl PhillipsThe London winter of 1947 is as cold as St Petersburg during the Re...

  • Sebastian Faulks synopsis, comments

    Sebastian Faulks

    Jonathan Noakes & Margaret Reynolds

    In Vintage Living Texts teachers and students will find the essential guide to the works of Sebastian Faulks. This guide will deal with his themes, genre and narrative technique, a...

  • Hearts of Stone synopsis, comments

    Hearts of Stone

    Simon Scarrow

    A STUNNING SECOND WORLD WAR THRILLER SET IN OCCUPIED GREECE FROM THE AUTHOR OF BLACKOUT AND DEAD OF NIGHTThe fierce courage of the men and women of the Greek Resistance is brought ...

  • The Mango Orchard synopsis, comments

    The Mango Orchard

    Robin Bayley

    As a child, Robin Bayley was enchanted by his grandmother's stories of Mexican adventures: of bandits, wild jungle journeys, hidden bags of silver and a narrow escape from the bloo...

  • The Heptameron synopsis, comments

    The Heptameron

    Marguerite de Navarre

    In the early 1500s five men and five women find themselves trapped by floods and compelled to take refuge in an abbey high in the Pyrenees. When told they must wait days for a brid...

  • Porterhouse Blue synopsis, comments

    Porterhouse Blue

    Tom Sharpe

    The 'endlessly funny' novel widely regarded as a classic of comic English literaturePorterhouse College is world renowned for its gastronomic excellence, the arrogance of its Fello...

  • Secrets of the Henna Girl synopsis, comments

    Secrets of the Henna Girl

    Sufiya Ahmed

    Life as Zeba knows it could be over for good . . .Zeba Khan is like any other sixteenyearold girl: enjoying herself, waiting for exam results . . . and dreaming of the day she'll m...

  • Natural History synopsis, comments

    Natural History

    Pliny the Elder

    Pliny's Natural History is an astonishingly ambitious work that ranges from astronomy to art and from geography to zoology. Mingling acute observation with often wild speculation, ...

  • The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire synopsis, comments

    The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

    Edward Gibbon

    Spanning thirteen centuries from the age of Trajan to the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, DECLINE & FALL is one of the greatest narratives in European Literature. David ...

  • Birdsong synopsis, comments

    Birdsong

    Sebastian Faulks

    #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER A mesmerising story of love and war spanning three generations and the unimaginable gulf between the First World War and the 1990sIn this "ov...

  • An Imperial Possession synopsis, comments

    An Imperial Possession

    David Mattingly

    Part of the Penguin History of Britain series, An Imperial Possession is the first major narrative history of Roman Britain for a generation. David Mattingly draws on a wealth of ...

  • Of Love and War synopsis, comments

    Of Love and War

    Paul Doherty

    The war may be over, but devastating secrets are about to come to light...Of Love and War is a compelling tale of love, guilt and retribution in the aftermath of the Great War from...

  • Past Mortem synopsis, comments

    Past Mortem

    Ben Elton

    'A writer who provokes, almost as much as he entertains' Daily Mail'Engaging and smartly plotted' ObserverWith old friends like these, who needs enemies?It's a question mild manner...

  • Covenant with Death synopsis, comments

    Covenant with Death

    John Harris & Louis de Bernières

    Stirringly told from the view of everyday soldiers, Covenant with Death is acclaimed as one of the greatest novels about war ever written. With a new foreword by Louis de Bernières...

  • The Forsyte Saga synopsis, comments

    The Forsyte Saga

    John Galsworthy

    In this final volume of The Forsyte Saga Galsworthy writes about the lives and loves of the Cherrell family, cousins of the Forsytes. For centuries, the Cherrell sons have left the...

  • The Makers of Rome synopsis, comments

    The Makers of Rome

    Plutarch & Ian Scott-Kilvert

    These nine biographies illuminate the careers, personalities and military campaigns of some of Rome's greatest statesmen, whose lives span the earliest days of the Republic to the ...

  • Lives of the Later Caesars synopsis, comments

    Lives of the Later Caesars

    Anthony Birley

    One of the most controversial of all works to survive from ancient Rome, the Augustan History is our main source of information about the Roman emperors from 117 to 284 AD. Written...

  • The Golden Hour synopsis, comments

    The Golden Hour

    William Nicholson

    She loves him. She's happy. But could she be happier? 'Capturing humour in the small, perfectly skewered moments of everyday life, this is a story of small, largely middleclass liv...

  • In the Absence of Men synopsis, comments

    In the Absence of Men

    Philippe Besson & Frank Wynne

    'An astonishing love story, beautifully told' Time Out'I am sixteen. I am as old as the century'It is 1916. Vincent is sixteen, on the brink of manhood. ...