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.
Combining the intellectual audacity of A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters with the francophilia of the acclaimed Flaubert's Parrot, Julian Barnes explores the English experience of France over the centuries with dazzling wit and sophistication.