Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2011Beginning with an unlikely stowaway's account of life on board Noah's Ark, A History of the World in 10½ Chapters presents a surprising and subversive fictional-history of earth told from several kaleidoscopic perspectives.

Deze tweetalige uitgave,‘Hm, hé, ha: Kunst en woorden’ bevat de prikkelende tekst die Julian Barnes uitsprak ter gelegenheid van de tweede Joost Zwagerman Lezing in november 2019 te Alkmaar.

We lijken niet in staat schilderijen te bekijken zonder erop los te leuteren. Waarom hebben we niet genoeg aan de schilderijen? En waarom verwachten we dat de kunstenaars zelf zo behulpzaam zijn hun eigen prestaties te verwoorden? Of dat critici dat voor hen doen? Woorden zijn niet altijd vrienden v...

Wie zelf kookt, weet dat er werelden van verschil bestaan tussen recept en eindproduct. Of het gerecht op tafel nu tot triomf of teleurstelling leidt, bij het lezen van het kookboek heerst vooral twijfel. Hoe groot precies is een `klontje ? Is een `toefje meer of juist minder dan een `klodder ? Hoe groot is een middelgrote ui? En wat is het verschil tussen `fijnsnijden en `fijnhakken ? De keukenwijsneus wil

het allemaal weten en zoekt het tot in de puntjes uit, wat zijn kookkunsten niet alt...

In May 1937 a man in his early thirties waits by the lift of a Leningrad apartment block. He waits all through the night, expecting to be taken away to the Big House. Any celebrity he has known in the previous decade is no use to him now. And few who are taken to the Big House ever return.So begins Julian Barnes's first novel since his Booker-winning The Sense of an Ending. A story about the collision of Art and Power, about human compromise, human cowardice and human courage, it is the work ...

Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2011Graham Hendrick, an historian, has left his wife Barbara for the vivacious Ann, and is more than pleased with his new life. 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.

The Sunday Times Bestseller from the Winner of the Booker Prize

She will change the way you see the world . . .

'I'll remember Elizabeth Finch when most other characters I've met this year have faded' The Times

Elizabeth Finch was a teacher, a thinker, an inspiration. Neil is just one of many who fell under her spell during his time in her class. Tasked with unpacking her notebooks after her death, Neil encounters once again Elizabeth's astonishing ideas on the past and on how to make sense o...

Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2011Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they would navigate the girl-less sixth form together, trading in affectations, in-jokes, rumour and wit. Maybe Adrian was a little more serious than the others, certainly more intelligent, but they all swore to stay friends for life.

Now Tony is in middle age. He's had a career and a single marriage, a calm divorce. He's certainly never tried to hurt anyb...

Julian Barnes heeft kunst en literatuur zelf moeten ontdekken, en dat gebeurde pas op latere leeftijd. Op een dag bezocht hij het Musée Gustave Moreau, zonder precies te weten wie de schilder was, en werd getroffen door zijn ongewone, weelderige werk. De mystiek van de schilderijen in combinatie met het feit dat hij een ‘eigen ontdekking’ had gedaan, zette hem in vuur en vlam.

Julian Barnes weet hoe kunst je hart kan veroveren en hoe dat op de lezer over te brengen. Hij neemt de lezer me...

Geoffrey Braithwaite is a retired doctor haunted by an obsession with the great French literary genius, Gustave Flaubert. As Geoffrey investigates the mystery of the stuffed parrot Flaubert borrowed from the Museum of Rouen to help research one of his novels, we learn an enormous amount about the writer's work, family, lovers, thought processes, health and obsessions. But we also gradually come to learn some important and shocking details about Geoffrey himself.