Jean-Pierre Aoustin Books

" Le titre original de l'ouvrage Kiss and Tell (Embrasse et raconte) suggère l'intimité du narrateur, tout occupé à dresser la biographie de sa petite amie, la gracieuse Isabel qui mange des carottes aux arrêts d'autobus, préfère la margarine au beurre, déteste les cornichons, Milton et sortir la poubelle le mardi, mais adore en revanche Vaclav Havel, le jus d'orange et lire dans son bain. L'intérêt de tout ça ? Considérable, of course. À quoi bon tout raconter des choses ordinaires d'un être extraordinaire ? Ou des choses extraordinaires (tuer quelqu'un, gagner à la loterie, etc.) d'un être ordinaire ? Non, Alain de Botton préfère sagement s'en tenir aux choses ordinaires d'un être ordinaire. Et de chapitre en chapitre où il médite sur le rôle des arbres généalogiques, la validité des tests psychologiques et graphologiques ou la possibilité philosophique de voir jamais le monde avec les yeux d'un autre, il nous plonge dans les affres et les joies d'une love story qui va cahin-caha. Au fait, n'est-il pas dangereux de prétendre tout connaître de la personne qui partage votre vie ou votre lit ? Pour ne pas avoir esquivé cette décisive question, Alain de Botton mérite encore notre gratitude infinie. " Frédéric Vitoux, Le Nouvel Observateur

The Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending takes us on a rich, witty tour of Belle Epoque Paris, via the life story of the pioneering surgeon Samuel PozziIn the summer of 1885, three Frenchmen arrived in London for a few days’ shopping. One was a Prince, one was a Count, and the third was a commoner with an Italian name, who four years earlier had been the subject of one of John Singer Sargent’s greatest portraits.The three men's lives play out against the backdrop of the Belle Epoque in Paris. The beautiful age of glamour and pleasure more often showed its ugly side: hysterical, narcissistic, decadent and violent, a time of rampant prejudice and blood-and-soil nativism, with more parallels to our own age than we might imagine.Our guide through this world is Samuel Pozzi, society doctor, pioneer gynaecologist and free-thinker, a rational and scientific man with a famously complicated private life.The Man in the Red Coat is at once a fresh and original portrait of the French Belle Epoque – its heroes and villains, its writers, artists and thinkers – and a life of a man ahead of his time. Witty, surprising and deeply researched, the new book from Julian Barnes illuminates the fruitful and longstanding exchange of ideas between Britain and France, and makes a compelling case for keeping that exchange alive.

Now a major film starring Academy Award nominees Jim Broadbent (Iris) and Charlotte Rampling (45 Years) Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2011 Tony 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 retired. He's had a career and a single marriage, a calm divorce. He's certainly never tried to hurt anybody. Memory, though, is imperfect. It can always throw up surprises, as a lawyer's letter is about to prove.

As boys, George, the son of a Midlands vicar, and Arthur, living in shabby genteel Edinburgh, find themselves in a vast and complex world at the heart of the British Empire. Years later - one struggling with his identity in a world hostile to his ancestry, the other creating the world’s most famous detective while in love with a woman who is not his wife - their fates become inextricably connected.

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.

Would you rather love the more, and suffer the more ; or love the less, and suffer the less ? That is, I think, finally, the only real question. First love has lifelong consequences, but Paul doesn't know anything about that at nineteen. At nineteen, he's proud of the fact his relationship flies in the face of social convention. As he grows older, the demands placed on Paul by love become far greater than he could possibly have foreseen.

As every schoolboy knows, you can fit the whole of England on the Isle of Wight. In Julian Barnes's new novel, the grotesque, visionary tycoon Sir Jack Pitman takes the saying literally and does exactly that. He constructs on the island 'The Project', a vast heritage centre containing everything 'English', from Buck House to Stonehenge, from Manchester United to the White Cliffs of Dover. The project is monstrous, risky and vastly successful. Indeed it gradually begins to rival 'Old' England and threatens to supersede it. 'Both ambitious and serious -- real if you like. Dive at those dump-bins.' Andrew Marr, Observer 'A brilliant, Swiftian fantasy.' Economist 'There is no more intelligent writer on the literary scene. In this novel he is also moving. He has written nothing more poignant and enticing.' John Carey, Sunday Times 'The novel has memorable characters and sentences, but its main impact will be through its penetrating ideas.' John Lanchester, Daily Telegraph

Des champs de bataille de la Somme aux vignobles bordelais en passant par le Paris des surréalistes, quand les Anglais traversent la Manche pour parcourir la France, cela donne des situations tantôt cocasses, tantôt touchantes, mais toujours surprenantes. Trois nouvelles savoureuses et pleines d'humour du plus francophile des écrivains britanniques.