Author Guide · Fiction, Lyrics & Memoir
Books Written by
Nick Cave wrote his first novel in Kreuzberg, West Berlin, over about three years in the mid-1980s, between records and tours. Born in 1957 in Warracknabeal, a small town in Victoria, Australia, he is best known as the singer of the Birthday Party and, since 1983, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Alongside the music he has published two novels, two volumes of lyrics and prose, a book-length poem written on airline sick bags, an illustrated archive of his life, and a book of conversations about grief and faith written after the deaths of two of his sons. This guide covers his seven key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 7 key books · 1988–2022 · Updated October 2026
ClickTap a spine to jump to that book below.
Quick answer
Nick Cave’s best-known books are Faith, Hope and Carnage (2022), his conversations with the journalist Seán O’Hagan, and his two novels, And the Ass Saw the Angel (1989) and The Death of Bunny Munro (2009). Start with Faith, Hope and Carnage; the novels show a much darker, stranger side of the same writer.
Where to Start with Nick Cave
If you want to start with his best-known book
→ Faith, Hope and Carnage (2022) — grief, faith and how he works, in conversation.
If you want his most ambitious fiction
→ And the Ass Saw the Angel (1989) — a Southern Gothic novel in biblical prose.
If you want a darker comedy
→ The Death of Bunny Munro (2009) — shorter, set in contemporary Brighton.
If you want to see where the songs come from
→ Stranger Than Kindness (2020) — notebooks, lyrics and objects from his archive.
7 Nick Cave Books, in Order
King Ink
Cave’s first book: song lyrics, plays and short prose from his years with the Birthday Party and the early Bad Seeds. The writing shares the violent, Gothic, Old Testament imagery of the records he was making at the time.
And the Ass Saw the Angel
Euchrid Eucrow, a mute boy born to a drunken mother and a father who builds traps for animals, grows up in a valley in the American South among a fanatically religious sect, the Ukulites, who shun his family. Visions of angels convince him he has been chosen, and the novel builds to his revenge on the community. Cave wrote it over about three years in West Berlin, expanding an unmade screenplay; critics compared it to Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor.
King Ink II
A second volume of lyrics and prose, covering the Bad Seeds’ work of the late 1980s and 1990s. It includes “The Flesh Made Word”, an essay on the Bible and his own writing.
The Death of Bunny Munro
Bunny Munro, a womanising door-to-door salesman of beauty products in Brighton, comes home to find that his wife Libby has hanged herself. He takes his nine-year-old son, Bunny Junior, out on the road with him while he keeps selling, and starts to see Libby’s ghost. His second novel, published by Canongate in the UK, is funnier and more contemporary than the first, and no less bleak.
The Sick Bag Song
A book-length poem that began as notes, verse and drawings Cave wrote on airline sick bags during a 22-city tour of North America. It mixes the tour with memory, love and the question of where songs come from. Canongate published it in 2015.
Stranger Than Kindness
Published by Canongate in March 2020 alongside an exhibition of his archive at the Black Diamond, the Royal Danish Library in Copenhagen. It reproduces handwritten lyrics, notebooks, artwork, photographs and personal objects, with Cave’s own commentary and an essay by the novelist Darcey Steinke. It was a Sunday Times top-ten bestseller.
Faith, Hope and Carnage
Edited from more than forty hours of conversation with the Observer journalist Seán O’Hagan, recorded over two years from 2020, during the pandemic. It covers his heroin addiction, his working methods, his lifelong argument with Christianity and, above all, the death of his fifteen-year-old son Arthur in 2015. Published on 20 September 2022 by Canongate and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, it was named among the best books of the year by The Guardian, Rolling Stone and The Big Issue.
In What Order to Read Nick Cave
None of Cave’s books continue from one another, so you can start anywhere. In publication order you can follow how the voice changes: the early collections and the first novel are dense, violent and biblical; The Death of Bunny Munro is lean and darkly comic; the books after 2015 are reflective, open about grief and increasingly about faith.
Most readers now come to him through Faith, Hope and Carnage, which also explains much of what came before. Read the two novels next if you want his fiction, and keep King Ink and King Ink II for when you know the songs.
A reading path
1. Faith, Hope and Carnage (2022)
2. The Death of Bunny Munro (2009)
3. And the Ass Saw the Angel (1989)
4. The Sick Bag Song (2015)
5. Stranger Than Kindness (2020)
Everything Else Nick Cave Published
Beyond the 7 key books: 3 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Lyrics and contributions
3
3 books · 1998–2007
- 1998The Gospel According to Markhis introduction to the Canongate Pocket Canon edition
- 2001Complete Lyricshis collected song lyrics
- 2007The Complete Lyrics 1978–2006an expanded edition of the collected lyrics
The years · 1957–2022
Quick facts about Nick Cave
- Known for
- Nick Cave is known as the singer and songwriter of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and as a writer whose books moved from Gothic fiction to an open account of grief and faith.
- 1957
- Born in Warracknabeal, Victoria
- 1983
- Forms Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
- Born
- 22 September 1957, Warracknabeal, Victoria, Australia; grew up in Wangaratta and Melbourne
- Bands
- The Birthday Party (1977–1983, first as the Boys Next Door); Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, since 1983
- Lives
- Between London and Brighton, England
- Married
- The designer and former model Susie Bick, in 1999
- Screenplays
- The Proposition (2005) and Lawless (2012)
- Honours
- Officer of the Order of Australia (2017); Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (2022)
- Newsletter
- The Red Hand Files, answering readers’ questions, since 2018
The red mark is 2022: Faith, Hope and Carnage, his conversations about grief and faith.
How Nick Cave Writes: From Sermon to Conversation
Cave’s early prose borrows its sound from the King James Bible: long, rhythmic sentences, curses and visions, a narrator who believes he has been chosen. In And the Ass Saw the Angel that voice carries a whole novel; in King Ink and King Ink II it runs through lyrics, plays and the essay “The Flesh Made Word”, about the Bible and his own writing.
The Death of Bunny Munro keeps the violence but changes the register: short scenes, a present-day English setting and a comic, pitiless view of its main character. The Sick Bag Song and Stranger Than Kindness turn toward fragments — notes, drafts, drawings and objects — and show how the songs are assembled.
Since 2018 most of his prose has been direct address: answers to readers in The Red Hand Files, and the long conversations of Faith, Hope and Carnage. Grief, doubt and faith are discussed openly rather than through characters. For writers with a similar range, see Authors like Nick Cave.
Watch
Nick Cave on faith, grief and music
Cave talks to BBC Newsnight in November 2022 about Faith, Hope and Carnage, the deaths of his sons Arthur and Jethro, and how grief changed his faith.
Frequently asked questions about Nick Cave’s books
How many books has Nick Cave written?
Seven key books, all on this page: two novels (And the Ass Saw the Angel, 1989, and The Death of Bunny Munro, 2009), two collections of lyrics and prose (King Ink and King Ink II), the poem The Sick Bag Song, the illustrated archive Stranger Than Kindness and Faith, Hope and Carnage. His collected lyrics have also been published in several editions.
What are Nick Cave’s books in order?
King Ink (1988), And the Ass Saw the Angel (1989), King Ink II (1997), The Death of Bunny Munro (2009), The Sick Bag Song (2015), Stranger Than Kindness (2020) and Faith, Hope and Carnage (2022).
Where should I start with Nick Cave’s books?
With Faith, Hope and Carnage (2022). The conversation format is easy to read even if you know none of his music, and it explains much of his earlier work. If you want fiction, read The Death of Bunny Munro next.
What is Nick Cave’s most famous book?
Faith, Hope and Carnage, his 2022 book of conversations with Seán O’Hagan, a Sunday Times bestseller named among the best books of the year by several papers and magazines. Of his fiction, And the Ass Saw the Angel (1989) is the best known.
Who is Nick Cave?
An Australian singer, songwriter and author, born Nicholas Edward Cave in 1957, best known as the frontman of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. He has also written two novels, film scores and the screenplays for The Proposition and Lawless.
When was Nick Cave born, and where is he from?
He was born on 22 September 1957 in Warracknabeal, Victoria, Australia, and grew up in Wangaratta and later Melbourne. He left Australia in 1980.
Where does Nick Cave live?
In England. He lived in Brighton for many years from the early 2000s; his publisher Canongate says he lives between London and Brighton with his wife, the designer Susie Cave.
What happened to Nick Cave’s sons?
His son Arthur died on 14 July 2015, aged 15, after a fall from a cliff at Ovingdean, near Brighton; the coroner ruled it an accident, and the inquest heard he had taken LSD. His eldest son, Jethro Lazenby, died in May 2022, aged 31; no cause was made public. Cave speaks about Arthur’s death at length in Faith, Hope and Carnage.
Is Nick Cave religious?
He describes a lifelong, unresolved relationship with Christianity, which Faith, Hope and Carnage discusses at length. Since Arthur’s death he has spoken more openly about faith, without presenting himself as a conventional believer.
What is The Red Hand Files?
A newsletter Cave started in 2018 in which he answers questions sent in by readers, often about grief, love, faith and songwriting. His reply to a grieving reader in 2018, “Grief and love are forever intertwined”, is one of his most quoted passages.
Why was Nick Cave criticised for playing in Israel?
In November 2017 he played two concerts in Tel Aviv despite calls to cancel from the BDS movement and the group Artists for Palestine UK, which includes Roger Waters. In Tel Aviv he said he was playing partly to make “a principled stand” against people trying to “silence musicians”.
Has Nick Cave written screenplays?
Yes. He wrote The Proposition (2005), an Australian western, and Lawless (2012). And the Ass Saw the Angel itself grew out of an unmade screenplay.
Is Nick Cave still alive?
Yes. He continues to record and tour with the Bad Seeds and to write The Red Hand Files.
Footnotes
- Nick Cave — Wikipedia
- And the Ass Saw the Angel — Wikipedia
- Faith, Hope, and Carnage — Wikipedia
- Nick Cave — Canongate
- The Death of Bunny Munro — Kirkus Reviews
- Nick Cave says he is playing Israel to make a stand — ITV News, 2017
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“It seems to me, that if we love, we grieve. That’s the deal. That’s the pact. Grief and love are forever intertwined.”
— Nick Cave, The Red Hand Files (2018), answering a reader’s letter
If this shelf interested you, the full bookshelf has more: reading lists by theme, author guides, and notes on what is actually worth your time.
Browse the full bookshelf Get book recommendationsRead next
