Through the Window

In these seventeen essays (plus a short story) the 2011 Man Booker Prize winner examines British, French and American writers who have meant most to him, 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.

When his Letters from London came out in 1995, the Financial Times called him 'our best essayist'. This wise and deft collection confirms that judgment.

"Julian Barnes's sparkling new collection of essays, is a veritable treasure house of letters on novels and their authors." -Liam Hoare, themillions.com

"Two recurring themes emerge from this anthology: France and death. Barnes is a keen observer of both lands. The Gallic realm shapes up as a potent muse while mortality hangs like a buzzard over many of these pages, hovering almost out of sight in the Lorrie Moore profile, swooping in for a tribute to the late John Updike, and landing, talons out in the final entry, 'Regulating Sorrow'." -Christian House, The Independent

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