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Fires Which Burned Brightly
- Author
- Sebastian Faulks
- Narrator
- Sebastian Faulks
- Publisher
- Cornerstone
- Publish Date
- 2 September 2025
- Run Time
- 8 hours 30 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
- Genre
- Memoirs, Essays, Autobiography: writers
- Rating
- 5.0 (1 review)
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What to expect
Brought to you by Penguin.
‘The only dividend of the years’ vanishing, as far as I can see, is that it makes aspects of the past appear more interesting or humorous than they felt at the time.’
In Fires Which Burned Brightly, Faulks, a reluctant memoirist, offers readers a series of detailed snapshots from a life in progress. They include a post-war rural childhood – ‘cold mutton and wet washing on a rack over the range’ – the booze-sodden heyday of Fleet Street and a career as one of the country’s most acclaimed novelists.
There are not one, but two daring escapes from boarding school; the delirium of a jetlagged American book tour; the writing of Birdsong in his brother’s house in 1992; and memorable trips across the channel to France. Politics, psychiatry and frustrated ventures into the world of entertainment are analysed with patience and rueful humour.
The book is driven by a desire ‘to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.’ It ends with a tribute to Faulks’s parents and a sense of how his own generation was shaped by the disruptive power of war and its aftermath.
Sharply perceptive and alive with a generous wit, Fires Which Burned Brightly is a work of subtle yet profound intelligence and warmth.
© Sebastian Faulks 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025
Critics Review
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Sebastian Faulks is one of our finest living authors, a writer whose work has often explored the fragility of human sanity and how easily it can unravel . . . A wise and heartfelt piece of writing
The Times
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Intriguing, fascinating and enlightening . . . filled with gratitude and charm, but also full of evidence of the endless curiosity that is every great novelist’s weapon of choice
i Paper
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A wonderful portrait of an age, and of a writer
RORY STEWART, author of Politics on the Edge
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Utterly fascinating
DAVID KYNASTON, author of A Northern Wind
See more reviews See fewer reviews
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Shot through with the kind of depth and detail that can only come from a masterful writer finally turning his pen to his own life. Fresh, wise and finely-wrought
ALICE WINN, author of In Memoriam
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As charming and funny in schoolboy episodes as he is thought-provoking in the darker environs of mental health, Sebastian Faulks is always resonant, civilised and sane
MARK KNOPFLER
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Entertaining . . . It ends with a beautiful tribute to his father, a modest, genuine war hero
The Times
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Faulks is the benchmark of living novelists, the best of that generation, and still burning brightly
The Week
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From schooldays and Fleet Street to the publication of Birdsong and beyond, Faulks reflects on the experiences that shaped him as a writer in this warm and insightful memoir. Rich in literary and cultural history, it also offers a fascinating portrait of post-war Britain.
i Paper
User Reviews
Book 5.0
Narration 5.0
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Details
- Author
- Sebastian Faulks
- Narrator
- Sebastian Faulks
- Duration
- 8 hours 30 minutes
- Release Date
- 2 September 2025
- ISBN
- 9781804955031
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Cornerstone
- Genre
- Memoirs, Essays, Autobiography: writers
- Rating
- 5.0(1 review)
- Narration
- 5.0(1 review)
Synopsis
Brought to you by Penguin.‘The only dividend of the years’ vanishing, as far as I can see, is that it makes aspects of the past appear more interesting or humorous than they felt at the time.’In Fires Which Burned Brightly, Faulks, a reluctant memoirist, offers readers a series of detailed snapshots from a life in progress. They include a post-war rural childhood – ‘cold mutton and wet washing on a rack over the range’ – the booze-sodden heyday of Fleet Street and a career as one of the country’s most acclaimed novelists.There are not one, but two daring escapes from boarding school; the delirium of a jetlagged American book tour; the writing of Birdsong in his brother’s house in 1992; and memorable trips across the channel to France. Politics, psychiatry and frustrated ventures into the world of entertainment are analysed with patience and rueful humour.The book is driven by a desire ‘to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.’ It ends with a tribute to Faulks’s parents and a sense of how his own generation was shaped by the disruptive power of war and its aftermath.Sharply perceptive and alive with a generous wit, Fires Which Burned Brightly is a work of subtle yet profound intelligence and warmth.© Sebastian Faulks 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025
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