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Book Cover for: A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters, Julian Barnes

A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters

Julian Barnes

A "playful, witty, and entertaining" book (The New York Times Book Review) that offers an exhilarating vision of the world, starting with the voyage of Noah's ark and ending with a sneak preview of heaven--from the bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending.

It's a hilariously revisionist account of Noah's ark, narrated by a passenger who doesn't appear in Genesis. It's a sneak preview of heaven. It encompasses the stories of a cruise ship hijacked by terrorists and of woodworms tried for blasphemy in sixteenth-century France. It explores the relationship of fact to fabulation and the antagonism between history and love. In short, A History of the World in 101/2 Chapters is a grandly ambitious and inventive work of fiction, in the traditions of Joyce and Calvino, from the author of the widely acclaimed Flaubert's Parrot.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Vintage
  • Publish Date: Nov 27th, 1990
  • Pages: 320
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.03in - 5.14in - 0.74in - 0.52lb
  • EAN: 9780679731375
  • Categories: LiteraryVisionary & MetaphysicalShort Stories (single author)

About the Author

Born in Leicester in 1946, Julian Barnes is the author of nine novels, a book of stories, and a collection of essays. He has won both the Prix Médicis and the Prix Fémina, and in 1988 was made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He lives in London.

Praise for this book

"Stunning ... a flawless diamond." --Chicago Sun-Times

"Playful, witty and entertaining." --Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Times Book Review

"Frequently brilliant, funny, thoughtful, iconoclastic and a delight to read." --Salman Rushdie, Observer

"At his best, Barnes is a dazzler." --Los Angeles Times

"It's a book to keep the reader on his toes." --The New York Review of Books