A Week in December [Paperback]

A vicious satire on modern life. -- Daily Telegraph, review in the best of the recent financial fiction

`Page-turning portrait of noughties' London.' -- Woman&Home

'The novel is cleverly plotted and eminently readable...' --The Sunday Times

`Faulks never writes a hackneyed or lazy sentence, polishing each with care' --Independent on Sunday

`a zeitgeisty novel about the effects of greed, celebrity, the electronic age and the fragmentation of urban life.' --Cath Kidston Magazine

'It's gripping stuff [...] Sweeping and satirical, A Week in December is a thrilling state-of-the-nation novel.'
--Cath Kidston Magazine

`This intriguing book... takes the reader on a whistle-stop tour of society...' --Waterstone's Books Quarterly, November 2010

`One can't mistake Faulk's ambition, and his take on the contemporary life is never less than readable' --Sunday Herald

Powerful contemporary novel set in London from a master of literary fiction

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

London, the week before Christmas, 2007. Seven wintry days to track the lives of seven characters: a hedge fund manager trying to bring off the biggest trade of his career; a professional footballer recently arrived from Poland; a young lawyer with little work and too much time to speculate; a student who has been led astray by Islamist theory; a hack book-reviewer; a schoolboy hooked on skunk and reality TV; and a Tube driver whose Circle Line train joins these and countless other lives together in a daily loop.

With daring skill, the novel pieces together the complex patterns and crossings of modern urban life, and the group is forced, one by one, to confront the true nature of the world they inhabit. Sweeping, satirical, Dickensian in scope, A Week in December is a thrilling state of the nation novel from a master of literary fiction.

'A compelling tale of contemporary London' Guardian

'Hilarious... The satire is so vicious that at times it's like reading a Tom Sharpe novel' Daily Telegraph

'Perfectly constructed...a pleasure to read' Sunday Telegraph

London, the week before Christmas, 2007. Over seven days we follow the lives of seven major characters: a hedge-fund manager trying to bring off the biggest trade of his career; a professional footballer recently arrived from Poland; a young lawyer with little work and too much time to speculate; a student who has been led astray by Islamist theory; a hack book-reviewer; a schoolboy hooked on skunk and reality TV; and a Tube train driver whose Circle Line train joins these and countless other lives together in a daily loop.

With daring skill, the novel pieces together the complex patterns and crossings of modern urban life. Greed, the dehumanising effects of the electronic age and the fragmentation of society are some of the themes dealt with in this savagely humorous book. The writing on the wall appears in letters ten feet high, but the characters refuse to see it - and party on as though tomorrow is a dream.

Sebastian Faulks probes not only the self-deceptions of this intensely realised group of people, but their hopes and loves as well. As the novel moves to its gripping climax, they are forced, one by one, to confront the true nature of the world they inhabit.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Praise for Engleby

'Engleby is 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.' - Jane Shilling, Sunday Telegraph

'Engagingly lucid and disarmingly funny... This novel is a significant departure for Faulks, and the new terrain suits him well' - Guardian

'Very funny and, at the same time, deeply disturbing... A great read, a great novel' - Daily Mail

'Evidence of Faulks's remarkable empathy and mastery of the novelist's art... Compelling, disturbing and significant... A remarkable achievement.' - Allan Massie, Scotsman

Praise for Sebastian Faulks:

'Faulks is beyond doubt a master' Financial Times

'A novelist with muscle, with affinities to the great Europeans' The Times

'The best novelist of his generation' Scotsman

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Sebastian Faulks was born and brought up in Newbury, Berkshire. He worked in journalism before starting to write books. He is best known for the French trilogy, The Girl at the Lion d'Or, Birdsong and Charlotte Gray (1989-1997) and is also the author of a triple biography, The Fatal Englishman (1996); a small book of literary parodies, Pistache (2006); and the novels Human Traces (2005) and Engleby (2007). He lives in London with his wife and their three children.