Jean-Pierre Aoustin Books

Quelque chose dans la mission du biographe tentait mon imagination : l'idée d'arriver à comprendre un être humain aussi parfaitement qu'une personne peut en comprendre une autre, de m'immerger dans une vie autre que la mienne, de connaître quelqu'un à travers son enfance et ses rêves, de découvrir toute la gamme de ses goûts... Mais que peut faire un jeune écrivain quand aucun personnage célèbre ne l'intéresse assez pour qu'il tente d'en rédiger la biographie ? Eh bien, choisir quelqu'un dont il se croit - douce illusion - très proche, sa petite amie. C'est donc la ravissante Isabel qui va devenir l'objet de son étude. Sera-t-elle touchée ou flattée - ou les deux - par tant d'attention portée à sa personne ? Faut-il tout savoir de celle qui partage votre vie ? L'amour peut-il prendre la forme d'une enquête aussi minutieuse ? En bref, qu'arrivera-t-il à nos deux héros ?

"Originally published in hardcover in Great Britain in slightly different form by Johnathan Cape, ... London, in 2019"--Copyright page.

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.

Booker Prize Finalist "Wickedly funny." --The New York Times Imagine an England where all the pubs are quaint, where the Windsors behave themselves (mostly), where the cliffs of Dover are actually white, and where Robin Hood and his merry men really are merry. This is precisely what visionary tycoon, Sir Jack Pitman, seeks to accomplish on the Isle of Wight, a "destination" where tourists can find replicas of Big Ben (half size), Princess Di's grave, and even Harrod's (conveniently located inside the tower of London). Martha Cochrane, hired as one of Sir Jack's resident "no-people," ably assists him in realizing his dream. But when this land of make-believe gradually gets horribly and hilariously out of hand, Martha develops her own vision of the perfect England. Julian Barnes delights us with a novel that is at once a philosophical inquiry, a burst of mischief, and a moving elegy about authenticity and nationality.

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.