Best Selling Books by Julian Barnes

''I remain in unchanged admiration for this bold, headstrong, carefree undertaking, a first novel published when the author was twenty-five, which proved to be the first prose masterpiece in Russian'' Julian Barnes from his preface. Published in Russian in April 1840, A Hero of Our Time reached English in 1853, under the title ''Sketches of Life in the Caucasus, by a Russe.'' Full of towering landscapes and local colour, it can be read as the travelogue of a poet and serving officer, but also as a portrait of the romantic as self-destructive anti-hero. Vladimir Nabokov''s translation of A Hero of Our Time was published in the United States in 1958, the same year as Lolita: world fame was about to overtake this committed Russian living in America.

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

A wry, observant masterpiece—one of the singular treasures of the French fin de siècle Written between the age of twenty-three and his death at age forty-six, Jules Renard''s Journal 1887–1910 is a triumph of introspection and wit. One of the most celebrated figures of Belle Époque Paris, Renard was also a prolific diarist whose private musings were first published in five volumes some fifteen years after his death. Acclaimed by everyone from Somerset Maugham to Samuel Beckett to Susan Sontag, the Journal has had a decisive influence on contemporary letters and was named one of the 100 Books of the Century by Le Monde. It is also a singularly funny work, full of aphorisms, jokes, and sly observations on some of literature''s most indelible characters. These selections, brought together by Julian Barnes and translated by Theo Cuffe, offer unparalleled and unfailingly entertaining glimpses of a bygone world. Moving from modish Parisian salons to the French countryside, where Renard served as a provincial mayor in the final years of his life, the Journal is a portrait of a society in flux and a playground for one of the era''s great prose styles. Here, Renard confirms his place among France''s most dazzlingly inventive writers.

In his first collection of short stories, 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.

Conversations with Julian Barnes collects eighteen interviews, conducted over nearly three decades, by journalists and correspondents throughout the world with the author (b. 1946) of such highly praised novels as Flaubert''s Parrot and Arthur & George. The interviews collectively address the entirety of Julian Barnes''s varied works and provide readers the most vivid portrait yet of contexts and influences behind his ten novels, his short stories, and his essays. The interviews focus not only on the author''s fiction but also on his essays, translations, and pseudonymous writings. Barnes''s evolving understanding of the themes developed in his works (history, truth, love, art, and death), his views on the art of the writing process, and the role of authors in contemporary society are also discussed at length.

An Everyman''s Library hardcover omnibus edition of two of the Booker Prize-winning author''s earliest and most admired novels, neither of which has been available in hardcover for more than two decades. With full-cloth binding, a silk ribbon marker, a chronology, and a new introduction. Flaubert''s Parrot, Julian Barnes''s breakthrough book—shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1984—is the story of Geoffrey Braithwaite, a retired doctor who is obsessed with the French author and with tracking down a stuffed parrot that once inspired him. Barnes playfully combines a literary detective story with a character study of its detective, embedded in a brilliant riff on literary genius. A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters is a mix of fictional and historical narratives of voyage and discovery—ranging from a woodworm''s perspective on Noah''s ark to a survivor from the sinking of the Titanic—that question our ideas of history. One of his most inventive works, it was praised by Salman Rushdie as "frequently brilliant, funny, thoughtful, iconoclastic, and a delight to read."

A collection of essays on France from Julian Barnes. Written over a 20 year period, the topics Barnes covers range from landscape to literature, food to Flaubert, film and song to the Tour de France.

In this powerfully affecting Flaubert''s Parrot gives readers a brilliant take on the deceptions that make up the quivering substrata of erotic love. "An interplay of serious thought and dazzling wit. . . . It''s moving, it''s funny, it''s frightening . . . fiction at its best."--New York Times Book Review.

A seize ans, Christopher et Toni, deux inséparables copains, réalisent que c''est uniquement dans le métro qu''ils peuvent être vraiment seuls avec eux-mêmes et imaginer tout ce qui changera quand ils seront enfin dans la Vraie Vie. Il y aura le mariage - et l''amour huit fois par nuit -, de grandes quantités d''argent à la banque, les boîtes de nuit... Bref, les rêves de tous les garçons de leur âge. Mais sous la plume de Julian Barnes, qui signait là son premier roman, leur éducation sentimentale et autre devient un petit chef-d''œuvre de drôlerie... Un jour, ils auront vingt ans, puis davantage. Lequel des deux saura le mieux équilibrer les contraintes et les illusions ?

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 & George will surely find him an entirely new audience.

"The Sense of an Ending follows Tony Webster, a middle-aged man, as he contends with a past he never thought much about--until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance: one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. Tony thought he left this all behind as he built a life for himself, and his career has provided him with a secure retirement and an amicable relationship with his ex-wife and daughter, who now has a family of her own. But when Tony is presented with a mysterious legacy, he is forced to reconsider a variety of things he thought he understood all along, and he must revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world. A novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single setting, The Sense of an Ending has the psychological and emotional depth and sophistication of Henry James at his best, and is a crowning achievement of Julian Barnes''s oeuvre."--

SEGONA EDICIÓ 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 (Portàtil) Res a témer, de Julian Barnes Pulsacions, de Julian Barnes