Would you rather love the more, and suffer the more; or love the less, and suffer the less? That is, I think, finally, the only real question. First love has lifelong consequences, but Paul doesn't know anything about that at nineteen. At nineteen, he's proud of the fact his relationship flies in the face of social convention. As he grows older, the demands placed on Paul by love become far greater than he could possibly have foreseen. Tender and wise, The Only Story is a deeply moving novel by one of Britain's greatest mappers of the human heart.
Beginning with a stowaway's account of life on board Noah's Ark, this book presents a subversive, fictional history of earth told from several kaleidoscopic perspectives. It features a journey to the Titanic, to the Amazon, to the raft of the Medusa, and to an ecclesiastical court in medieval France where a bizarre case is about to begin.
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.
When it comes to death, is there ever a best case scenario? In this disarmingly witty book, Julian Barnes confronts our unending obsession with the end. He reflects on what it means to miss God, whether death can be good for our careers and why we eventually turn into our parents. Barnes is the perfect guide to the weirdness of the only thing that binds us all.
Selected from the book Nothing to be Frightened Of by Julian Barnes VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS.
A series of short books by the world's greatest writers on the experiences that make us human Also in the Vintage Minis series:
Calm by Tim Parks Drinking by John Cheever Babies by Anne Enright Psychedelics by Aldous Huxley
From the winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize for Fiction comes an enthralling set of short stories.
No one has a better perspective on life on both sides of the channel than Julian Barnes. In these exquisitely crafted stories spanning several centuries, he takes as his universal theme the British in France; from the last days of a reclusive English composer, the beef consuming 'navvies' labouring on the Paris-Rouen railway to a lonely woman mourning the death of her brother on the battlefields of the Somme.
Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2011 Graham Hendrick, an historian, has left his wife Barbara for the vivacious Ann, and is more than pleased with his new life. Until, that is, the day he discovers Ann's celluloid past as a mediocre film actress. Soon Graham is pouncing on old clues, examining her books for inscriptions from past lovers, frequenting cinemas and poring over the bad movies she appeared in. It's not that he blames Anne for having a past before they met, but history has always mattered to him...
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.
A family memoir, an exchange with the author's 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 French writer Jules Renard.
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 National Treasure Status of George Orwell to the despair of Michel Houellebecq, the author considers what fiction is, and what it can do.
A special edition of Julian Barnes's first novel with an introduction from the author and previously unseen archive material.
Christopher and Toni found in each other the perfect companion for that universal adolescent pastime: smirking at the world as you find it. In between training as flaneurs and the grind of school, they cast a cynical eye over their various dislikes: parents with their lives of spotless emptiness, Third Division (North) football teams, God, commuters and girls, and the inhabitants of Metroland: the strip of suburban dormitory Christopher calls home.
Longing for real life to begin, Christopher makes for Paris in time for les evenements of 1968, only to miss it all in a haze of sex, French theatre and first love. And before long he finds himself drawn inevitably back to Metroland and the very life he was trying to escape...
This special edition contains unseen archive material including letters from early fans such as Philip Larkin and Dodie Smith, contemporary reviews, a deleted scene from the original manuscript as well as an introduction from the author.
