New Releases by Julian Barnes

From the Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending—a rich, witty, revelatory tour of Belle Époque Paris, told through the remarkable life story of the pioneering surgeon, Samuel Pozzi. • “A pleasure to read in every way.” —The New York Times Book Review In the summer of 1885, three Frenchmen arrived in London for a few days'' intellectual shopping: a prince, a count, and a commoner with an Italian name. In time, each of these men would achieve a certain level of renown, but who were they then and what was the significance of their sojourn to England? Answering these questions, Julian Barnes unfurls the stories of their lives which play out against the backdrop of the Belle Époque in Paris. Our guide through this world is Samuel Pozzi, the society doctor, free-thinker and man of science with a famously complicated private life who was the subject of one of John Singer Sargent''s greatest portraits. In this vivid tapestry of people (Henry James, Sarah Bernhardt, Oscar Wilde, Proust, James Whistler, among many others), place, and time, we see not merely an epoch of glamour and pleasure, but, surprisingly, one of violence, prejudice, and nativism—with more parallels to our own age than we might imagine. The Man in the Red Coat is, at once, a fresh portrait of the Belle Époque; an illuminating look at the longstanding exchange of ideas between Britain and France; and a life of a man who lived passionately in the moment but whose ideas and achievements were far ahead of his time.

From the bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending comes “a brilliant, rueful look at love—what we do for it, how we experience it and what makes it die” (People). One summer in the sixties, in a staid suburb south of London, nineteen-year-old Paul comes home from university and is urged by his mother to join the tennis club. There he’s partnered with Susan Macleod, a fine player who’s forty-eight, confident, witty, and married, with two nearly adult daughters. She is a warm companion, her bond with Paul immediate. And soon, inevitably, they are lovers. Basking in the glow of one another, they set up house together in London. Decades later, Paul looks back at how they fell in love and how—gradually, relentlessly—everything fell apart. As he turns over his only story in his mind, examining it from different vantage points, he finds himself confronted with the contradictions and slips of his own memory—and the ways in which our narratives and our lives shape one another. Poignant, vivid and profound, The Only Story is a searing novel of memory, devotion, and how first love fixes a life forever.

From the bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending comes an extraordinary fictional portrait of the relentlessly fascinating Russian musician and composer Dmitri Shostakovich and a stunning meditation on the meaning of art and its place in society. • “Brilliant…. As elegantly constructed as a concerto.” —NPR 1936: Dmitri Shostakovich, just thirty years old, reckons with the first of three conversations with power that will irrevocably shape his life. Stalin, hitherto a distant figure, has suddenly denounced the young composer’s latest opera. Certain he will be exiled to Siberia (or, more likely, shot dead on the spot), Shostakovich reflects on his predicament, his personal history, his parents, his daughter—all of those hanging in the balance of his fate. And though a stroke of luck prevents him from becoming yet another casualty of the Great Terror, he will twice more be swept up by the forces of despotism: coerced into praising the Soviet state at a cultural conference in New York in 1948, and finally bullied into joining the Party in 1960. All the while, he is compelled to constantly weigh the specter of power against the integrity of his music.

An extraordinary collection of essays on the great masters of nineteenth- and twentieth-century art—from the Booker Prize-winning, bestselling author of The Sense of an Ending. “An engaging and empathetic volume.” —The New York Times Book Review As Julian Barnes notes: “Flaubert believed that it was impossible to explain one art form in terms of another, and that great paintings required no words of explanation. Braque thought the ideal state would be reached when we said nothing at all in front of a painting … But it is a rare picture that stuns, or argues, us into silence. And if one does, it is only a short time before we want to explain and understand the very silence into which we have been plunged.” This is the exact dynamic that informs his new book. In his 1989 novel A History of the World in 10½ Chapters, Barnes had a chapter on Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa, and since then he has written about many great masters of art, including Delacroix, Manet, Fantin-Latour, Cézanne, Degas, Redon, Bonnard, Vuillard, Vallotton, Braque, Magritte, Oldenburg, Lucian Freud and Howard Hodgkin. The seventeen essays gathered here help trace the arc from Romanticism to Realism and into Modernism; they are adroit, insightful and, above all, a true pleasure to read.

A Vintage Shorts “Short Story Month” Selection From the Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending and one of Britain’s greatest writers, a twist on the workshop story and defense of Papa Hemingway, with art, love, ambition mixed in. “Homage to Hemingway” is modeled after the oft-overlooked Ernest Hemingway story “Homage to Switzerland,” a formally experimental work composed of three related vignettes. Here, Barnes composes three portraits of the modern writing life, a rhapsodic, witty and hopeful account of the writer’s search for what is good and what is true. From Barnes’s collection of miscellaneous prose, Through the Window. An eBook short.

From the bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending comes an elegant triptych of history, fiction, and memoir—a "wise, funny, and devastating ... discourse on love and sorrow" (The New York Times Book Review). In this “deeply stirring” book (The Boston Globe), Julian Barnes writes about ballooning and photography, love and grief; about putting two things, and two people, together, and tearing them apart; and enduring after the incomprehensible loss of a loved one. Powerfully rendered, exquisitely crafted in Barnes’s erudite style, this searing work confirms the author as an unparalleled magus of the heart.

Jean Serjeant, the heroine of Julian Barnes’s wonderfully provocative novel, seems ordinary, but has an extraordinary disdain for wisdom. And as Barnes—winner of the Man Booker Prize for The Sense of an Ending—follows her from her childhood in the 1920s to her flight into the sun in the year 2021, he confronts readers with the fruits of her relentless curiosity: pilgrimages to China and the Grand Canyon; a catalog of 1940s sexual euphemisms; and a glimpse of technology in the twenty-first century (when The Absolute Truth can be universally accessed). Elegant, funny and intellectually subversive, Staring at the Sun is Julian Barnes at his most dazzlingly original. “Brilliant. . . . A marvelous literary epiphany.” —Carlos Fuentes, The New York Times Book Review “Barnes’s literary energy and daring are nearly unparalleled.” —New Republic

It''s a hilariously revisionist account of Noah''s ark, narrated by a passenger who doesn''t appear in Genesis. It''s a sneak preview of heaven. It encompasses the stories of a cruise ship hijacked by terrorists and of woodworms tried for blasphemy in sixteenth-century France. It explores the relationship of fact to fabulation and the antagonism between history and love. In short, A History of the World in 10½ Chapters is a grandly ambitious and inventive work of fiction, in the traditions of Joyce and Calvino, from the author of the widely acclaimed Flaubert''s Parrot.

From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending and one of Britain''s greatest writers: a brilliant collection of essays on the books and authors that have meant the most to him throughout his illustrious career. In these seventeen essays (plus a short story), Julian Barnes examines the British, French and American writers who have shaped his writing, as well as the cross-currents and overlappings of their different cultures. From the deceptiveness of Penelope Fitzgerald to the directness of Hemingway, from Kipling''s view of France to the French view of Kipling, from the many translations of Madame Bovary to the fabulations of Ford Madox Ford, from the National Treasure status of George Orwell to the despair of Michel Houellebecq, Julian Barnes considers what fiction is, and what it can do. As he writes, "Novels tell us the most truth about life: what it is, how we live it, what it might be for, how we enjoy and value it, and how we lose it."

Una obra magnífica, plena d''humor, profunditat i saviesa, finalista del Man Booker Prize. Probablement la millor creació de Julian Barnes. Un episodi real, oblidat, convertit en una magnífica novel·la: una obra que permet veure en acció el creador de Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle, en un interessant cas d''intriga i prejudicis. Arthur Conan Doyle i George Edalji neixen a mitjan segle XIX a la Gran Bretanya. Els seus mons són distants: Arthur és metge i més tard escriptor de fama mundial gràcies a Sherlock Holmes; George, d''origen indi, fa d''advocat a Birmingham i treballa sense cap notorietat pública. Però a principis del segle XX uns misteriosos esdeveniments faran que els dos personatges coincideixin: es veuran involucrats en una trama policial amb cartes anònimes, atacs nocturns i enigmàtics assassinats que van trasbalsar l''opinió pública britànica. Fruit d''una intensa recerca, basada en un cas real, i de la brillant imaginació de Julian Barnes, Arthur i George retrata magníficament la societat victoriana i recrea les vides de dos personatges que esdevenen extraordinaris: George Edalji, acusat falsament i empresonat per motius racistes, i Arthur Conan Doyle, que va investigar el seu cas i va defensar públicament la seva innocència. Traducció d''Albert Torrescasana i Joan Puntí. ''Des del primer parràgraf, sabem que estem a les mans d''un gran novel·lista, que ens transporta a una irresistible narració, i que combina de manera genial biografia, història i l''emoció d''una trama d''intriga real. Barnes, en plena forma.'' [PD James, The Times] Julian Barnes Nascut a Leicester (Regne Unit) el 1946, Julian Barnes és un dels escriptors britànics més prestigiosos, de la generació de Kazuo Ishiguro, Martin Amis i Graham Swift. Irònic, imprevisible i intel·ligent, Barnes és autor de les novel·les Metroland (1981), El lloro de Flaubert (1984) (Prix Médicis, 1986), Història del món en deu capítols i mig (1989), Anglaterra, Anglaterra (1998), Amor, etc. (2000), els reculls de contes Cross Channel (1996) i The Lemon Table (2004), entre altres. Ha rebut nombrosos premis literaris i importants distincions -E.M. Forster de l''American Academy of Arts and Letters (1986), William Shakespeare de la Fundació FvS (1993), el Premi Àustria de literatura estrangera (2004) i Commandeur de l''Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2004). Arthur i George fou seleccionada per al Man Booker Prize el 2005. Julian Barnes viu actualment a Londres. Web de Julian Barnes Arthur i George, de Julian Barnes (Narratives) Res a témer, de Julian Barnes Pulsacions, de Julian Barnes

Winner of the 2011 Booker Prize and #1 international bestseller, The Sense of an Ending is a masterpiece. The story of a man coming to terms with the mutable past, Julian Barnes''s award-winning novel is laced with his trademark precision, dexterity and insight. It is the work of one of the world''s most distinguished writers. Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they navigated the girl drought of gawky adolescence together, trading in affectations, in-jokes, rumour and wit. Maybe Adrian was a little more serious than the others, certainly more intelligent, but they swore to stay friends forever. Until Adrian''s life took a turn into tragedy, and all of them, especially Tony, moved on and did their best to forget. Now Tony is in middle age. He''s had a career and a marriage, a calm divorce. He gets along nicely, he thinks, with his one child, a daughter, and even with his ex-wife. He''s certainly never tried to hurt anybody. Memory, though, is imperfect. It can always throw up surprises, as a lawyer''s letter is about to prove. The unexpected bequest conveyed by that letter leads Tony on a dogged search through a past suddenly turned murky. And how do you carry on, contentedly, when events conspire to upset all your vaunted truths?

The bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending delivers “a remarkably original and subtle book” (The New York Review of Books) about the nature of love and jealousy. At the start of this fiendishly comic and suspenseful novel, a mild-mannered English academic chuckles as he watches his wife commit adultery. The action takes place before she met him. But lines between film and reality, past and present become terrifyingly blurred in this sad and funny tour de force from the author of Flaubert''s Parrot.

The bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending delivers “fiction at its best” (The New York Times Book Review) in an unforgettable novel about two best friends and the beautiful woman who comes between them. First there’s Stuart, stolid, conventional, but not quite so dull as he pretends to be. Then there is Oliver, his glamorous, epigrammatic best friend. And veering wildly between them is Gillian, the cryptic beauty who marries Stuart and then astonishes everyone by falling in love with Oliver. These three are at once the protagonists and the hilariously unreliable “eye-witnesses” of this funny, elegant, and affecting novel by bestselling author Julian Barnes, which reimagines the romantic triangle as a weapon whose edges cut like razor blades.

From the bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of A Sense of an Ending comes a comedy of sexual awakening in the 1960s that is “wonderfully fresh, crackling with nostalgic irreverence” (Vogue). Only the author of Flaubert''s Parrot could give us a novel that is at once a note-perfect rendition of the angsts and attitudes of English adolescence, a giddy comedy of sexual awakening, and a portrait of the accommodations that some of us call "growing up" and others "selling out.

The bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending trains his laser-bright prose on the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe. Stoyo Petkanov, the deposed Party leader, is placed on trial for crimes that range from corruption to political murder. Petkanov''s guilt—and the righteousness of his opponents—would seem to be self-evident. But, as brilliantly imagined by Barnes, the trial of this cunning and unrepentant dictator illuminates the shadowy frontier between the rusted myths of the Communist past and a capitalist future in which everything is up for grabs.

BOOKER PRIZE NOMINEE • From the internationally bestselling author of The Sense of an Ending comes a literary detective story of a retired doctor obsessed with the 19th century French author Flaubert—and with tracking down the stuffed parrot that once inspired him. • “A high literary entertainment carried off with great brio.” —The New York Times Book Review Julian Barnes playfully combines a detective story with a character study of its detective, embedded in a brilliant riff on literary genius. A compelling weave of fiction and imaginatively ordered fact, Flaubert''s Parrot is by turns moving and entertaining, witty and scholarly, and a tour de force of seductive originality.

A collection of stories, in which a divorcee falls in love with a mysterious European waitress, a widower relives a favourite holiday, two writers rehearse familiar arguments, and, a couple bond, fall out and bond again over flowers and vegetable patches.

From the bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending, his first collection of short stories explores the vast divide between England and France. • “A witty, playful and ironic writer at the top of his form." —San Francisco Chronicle In this collection, Barnes explores the narrow body of water containing the vast sea of prejudice and misapprehension which lies between England and France with acuity, humor, and compassion. For whether Barnes''s English characters come to France as conquerors or hostages, laborers, athletes, or aesthetes, what they discover, alongside rich food and barbarous sexual and religious practices, is their own ineradicable Englishness. The ten stories that make up Cross Channel introduce us to a plethora of intriguing, original, and sometimes ill-fated characters. Elegantly conceived and seductively written, Cross Channel is further evidence of Barnes''s wizardry.

"I don’t believe in God, but I miss him." So begins Julian Barnes’s brilliant new book that is, among many things, a family memoir, an exchange with his brother (a philosopher), a meditation on mortality and the fear of death, a celebration of art, an argument with and about God and a homage to the writer Jules Renard. Barnes also draws poignant portraits of the last days of his parents, recalled with great detail, affection and exasperation. Other examples he takes up include writers, "most of them dead and quite a few of them French," as well as some composers, for good measure. The grace with which Barnes weaves together all of these threads makes the experience of reading the book nothing less than exhilarating. Although he cautions us that "this is not my autobiography," the book nonetheless reveals much about Barnes the man and the novelist: how he thinks and how he writes and how he lives. At once deadly serious and dazzlingly playful, Nothing to Be Frightened Of is a wise, funny and constantly surprising tour of the human condition.

BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • From the internationally acclaimed bestselling author The Sense of an Ending comes a "wickedly funny” novel (The New York Times) about an idyllic land of make-believe in England that gets horribly and hilariously out of hand. Imagine an England where all the pubs are quaint, where the Windsors behave themselves (mostly), where the cliffs of Dover are actually white, and where Robin Hood and his merry men really are merry. This is precisely what visionary tycoon, Sir Jack Pitman, seeks to accomplish on the Isle of Wight, a "destination" where tourists can find replicas of Big Ben (half size), Princess Di''s grave, and even Harrod''s (conveniently located inside the tower of London). Martha Cochrane, hired as one of Sir Jack''s resident "no-people," ably assists him in realizing his dream. But when things go awry, Martha develops her own vision of the perfect England. Julian Barnes delights us with a novel that is at once a philosophical inquiry, a burst of mischief, and a moving elegy about authenticity and nationality.

For anyone who loves France (or just feels strongly about it) comes a “beautifully written” collection of essays (The New York Times Book Review) on the country and its culture—from the bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending. Julian Barnes’s appreciation extends from France’s vanishing peasantry to its hyper-literate pop singers, from the gleeful iconoclasm of nouvelle vague cinema to the orgy of drugs and suffering that is the Tour de France. Above all, Barnes is an unparalleled connoisseur of French writing and writers. Here are the prolific and priapic Simenon, Baudelaire, Sand and Sartre, and several dazzling excursions on the prickly genius of Flaubert. Lively yet discriminating in its enthusiasm, seemingly infinite in its range of reference, and written in prose as stylish as haute couture, Something to Declare is an unadulterated joy.

Talks with the British author of Flaubert''s Parrot and Arthur & George

The bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending delivers a tragicomedy about a successful businessman who wants to undo the results of his former best friend’s betrayal and get his ex-wife back. • “An alarmingly perfect novel.” —The New York Review of Books Shortlisted twice for the Booker Prize, Julian Barnes continues to reinvigorate the novel with his pyrotechnic verbal skill and playful manipulation of plot and character. In Love, etc. he uses all the surprising, sophisticated ingredients of a delightful farce to create a tragicomedy of human frailties and needs. After spending a decade in America as a successful businessman, Stuart returns to London and decides to look up his ex-wife Gillian. Their relationship had ended years before when Stuart’s witty, feckless, former best friend Oliver stole her away. But now Stuart finds that the intervening years have left Oliver’s artistic ambitions in ruins and his relationship with Gillian on less than solid footing. When Stuart begins to suspect that he may be able to undo the results of their betrayal, he resolves to act. Written as an intimate series of crosscutting monologues that allow each character to whisper their secrets and interpretations directly to the reader, Love, etc. is an unsettling examination of confessional culture and a profound reflection on the power of perspective.

In this widely acclaimed collection of short stories, the bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending addresses the most poignant aspect of the human condition: growing old. "A master at work…. Sweet, sour, bitter, wistful, ruminative, comic, elegiac … A joy to read." —San Francisco Chronicle The characters in The Lemon Table are facing the ends of their lives—some with bitter regret, others with resignation, and others still with defiant rage. Their circumstances are just as varied as their responses. In 19th-century Sweden, three brief conversations provide the basis for a lifetime of longing. In today’s England, a retired army major heads into the city for his regimental dinner—and his annual appointment with a professional lady named Babs. Somewhere nearby, a devoted wife calms (or perhaps torments) her ailing husband by reading him recipes. In stories brimming with life and our desire to hang on to it one way or another, Barnes proves himself by turns wise, funny, clever, and profound—a writer of astonishing powers of empathy and invention.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • From the bestselling author of The Sense of an Ending comes an “extraordinary … first rate” novel (The New York Times Book Review) that follows the lives of two very different British men and explores the grand tapestry of late-Victorian Britain. As boys, George, the son of a Midlands vicar, and Arthur, living in shabby genteel Edinburgh, find themselves in a vast and complex world at the heart of the British Empire. Years later—one struggling with his identity in a world hostile to his ancestry, the other creating the world’s most famous detective while in love with a woman who is not his wife—their fates become inextricably connected.

Arthur And George Grow Up Worlds And Miles Apart In Late Nineteenth-Century Britain: Arthur In Shabby-Genteel Edinburgh, George In The Vicarage Of A Small Staffordshire Village. Arthur Becomes A Doctor, And Then A Writer; George A Solicitor In Birmingham. Arthur Is To Become One Of The Most Famous Men Of His Age, George Remains In Hardworking Obscurity. But As The New Century Begins, They Are Brought Together By A Sequence Of Events Which Made Sensational Headlines At The Time As The Great Wyrley Outrages.George Edjali''S Father Is Indian, His Mother Scottish. When The Family Begins To Receive Vicious Anonymous Letters, Many About Their Son, They Put It Down To Racial Prejudice. They Appeal To The Police, To No Less Than The Chief Constable, But To Their Dismay He Appears To Suspect George Of Being The Letters'' Author. Then Someone Starts Slashing Horses And Livestock. Again The Police Seem To Suspect The Shy, Aloof Birmingham Solicitor. He Is Arrested And, On The Flimsiest Evidence, Sent To Trial, Found Guilty And Sentenced To Seven Years'' Hard Labour.Arthur Conan Doyle, Famous As The Creator Of The World''S Greatest Detective, Is Mourning His First Wife (Having Been Chastely In Love For Ten Years With The Woman Who Was To Become His Second) When He Hears About The Edjali Case. Incensed At This Obvious Miscarriage Of Justice, He Is Galvanised Into Trying To Clear George''S Name.With A Mixture Of Detailed Research And Vivid Imagination, Julian Barnes Brings To Life Not Just This Long-Forgotten Case, But The Inner Lives Of These Two Very Different Men. The Reader Sees Them Both With Stunning Clarity, And Almost Inhabits Them As They Face The Vicissitudes Of Their Lives, Whether In The Dock Hearing A Verdict Of Guilty, Or Trying To Live An Honourable Life While Desperately In Love With Another Woman. This Is A Novel In Which The Events Of A Hundred Years Ago Constantly Set Off Contemporary Echoes, A Novel About Low Crime And High Spirituality, Guilt And Innocence, Identity, Nationality And Race; About What We Think, What We Believe, And What We Know.Julian Barnes Has Long Been Recognised As One Of Britain''S Most Remarkable Writers. While Those Already Familiar With His Work Will Enjoy Its Elegance, Its Wit, Its Profound Wisdom About The Human Condition, Arthur &Amp; George Will Surely Find Him An Entirely New Audience.

For anyone who has ever been defeated by a cookbook. This work is an elegant account of Julian Barnes'' search for gastronomic precision. It is a quest that leaves him seduced by Jane Grigson, infuriated by Nigel Slater and reassured by Mrs Beeton''s Victorian virtues.

With the same brilliant style and idiosyncratic intelligence that have marked all his novels—and with a bold grasp of intricate political realities—Julian Barnes''s ironic glance turns home. Letters from London takes in everything from Lloyd''s of London''s demise to Maggie''s majesty to Salman Rushie''s death sentence. Formidably articulate and outrageously funny, Letters from London is international voyeurism at its best—a peek into the British mindset from the vantage point of one of the most erudite and witty British minds.

Acest roman fascinant gravitează în jurul stoicei și exigentei Elizabeth Finch, lector universitar, un personaj cu adevărat memorabil. Neil, naratorul, se înscrie la cursul ei de cultură și civilizație pentru adulți de toate vârstele și este captivat de personalitatea acesteia. Un roman provocator și experimental, care se concentrează pe necesitatea de a reexamina și de a reevalua constant ceea ce credem că știm despre istorie, dar și despre dragoste sau prietenie. Cursul ei schimbă felul în care vedem lumea. În Elizabeth Finch, vom regăsi tot ceea ce prețuim la Barnes: atenția sa pentru formele neortodoxe ale iubirii dintre doi oameni, un viraj convingător către non-ficțiune, impactul istoriei și, în special, al biografiei, ca hrană și ghid în viețile noastre actuale. „O explorare lirică, atentă și captivantă a iubirii, a durerii și a miturilor colective ale istoriei.“ Booklist Elizabeth Finch e compusă din „două treimi ficțiune și o treime non-ficțiune. Partea literară are drept protagonistă o femeie care nu e doar inteligentă, ci de-a dreptul înțeleaptă, un lector universitar care predă cursuri adulților și care are un impact deosebit asupra vieții naratorului, dar și asupra modului său de a gândi. Partea de non-ficțiune se concentrează asupra lui Iulian Apostatul, cel din urmă împărat roman păgân, după uciderea căruia creștinismul a rămas triumfător vreme de vreo cincisprezece secole. [...] Elizabeth Finch este o femeie care nu aparține vremurilor sale, un personaj în afara timpului, care scrutează cu atenție realitatea, care vede lucrurile mai clar decât studenții săi.“ Julian Barnes