Julian Barnes

In the late nineteenth century Arthur is a doctor and writer in Edinburgh, and George is a solicitor in Birmingham. They are brought together by a sequence of events known as the Great Wyrley Outrages. Although these events occurred a century ago there are contemporary echoes in society today. Richard & Judy Bookclub.

Graham Hendrick, an historian, has left his wife Barbara for the vivacious Ann, and is more than pleased with his new life. Until, that is, the day he discovers Ann's celluloid past as a mediocre film actress. Soon Graham is pouncing on old clues, examining her books for inscriptions from past lovers, frequenting cinemas and poring over the bad movies she appeared in. It's not that he blames Anne for having a past before they met, but history has always mattered to him...

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.

As every schoolboy knows, you can fit the whole of England on the Isle of Wight. 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 Big Ben to Stonehenge, from Manchester United to the white cliffs of Dover. The project is monstrous, risky, and vastly successful. In fact, it gradually begins to rival 'Old' England and even threatens to supersede it... One of Barnes's finest and funniest novels, England, England calls into question the idea of replicas, truth vs fiction, reality vs art, nationhood, myth-making, and self-exploration.

A collection of short stories written in impeccable style and covering a wide subject range. X rated, contains offensive language and explicit sex.

The essays in this collection were originally published in The New Yorker and span the four years of Barnes's tenure as that magazine's London correspondent. Barnes explores his topics with an innate curiosity and a merciless wit, using each event to explore the social and political landscape of the capital.

Samuel Pozzi, society doctor, pioneer gynaecologist and free-thinker was a rational and scientific man with a famously complicated private life. Here, Julian Barnes brilliantly tells the story of the Belle Epoque through the eyes of a man who knew the writers, thinkers, aristocrats and actors of the day.

Two young adolescents sneered at the stifling ennui of Metroland and longed for life to begin - sex and freedom. When Chris aged 30 settles down, Toni challenges such backsliding. X rated, contains offensive language.

In May 1937, a man in his early thirties waits by the lift of a Leningrad apartment block, expecting to be taken away to the ‘Big House.’ Any celebrity he has known in the previous decade is no use to him now, and few who are taken there ever return.

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. But as he grows older, the demands placed on Paul by love become far greater than he could possibly have foreseen.

The Pedant's ambition is simple. He wants to cook tasty, nutritious food; he wants not to poison his friends; and he wants to expand, slowly and with pleasure, his culinary repertoire. A stern critic of himself and others, he knows he is never going to invent his own recipes (although he might, in a burst of enthusiasm, increase the quantity of a favourite ingredient). Rather, he is a recipe-bound follower of the instructions of others.

It is in his interrogations of these recipes, and of those who create them, that the Pedant's true pedantry emerges. How big, exactly, is a 'lump'? Is a 'slug' larger than a 'gout'? When does a 'drizzle' become a downpour? And what is the difference between slicing and chopping?This book is a witty and practical account of Julian Barnes' search for gastronomic precision. It is a quest that leaves him seduced by Jane Grigson, infuriated by Nigel Slater, and reassured by Mrs Beeton's Victorian virtues. The Pedant in the Kitchen is perfect comfort for anyone who has ever been defeated by a cookbook and is something that none of Julian Barnes' legion of admirers will want to miss.

Stoyo Petkanov, the deposed Party leader of a former Soviet satellite country, is on trial. His adversary, the prosecutor general, stands for the new government's ideals and liberal certainties, and is attempting to ensare Petkanov with the dictator's own totalitarian laws. But Petkanov is not beaten yet. He has been given his chance to fight back and he takes it with a vengeance, to the increasing discomfort and surprise of those around him.

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. They all swore to stay friends for life. Now Tony is in middle age and he is finding that memory is imperfect. Man Booker Prize Winner. X rated, contains offensive language and explicit sex.

Staring at the Sun charts the life of Jean Serjeant, from her beginning as a naive, carefree country girl before the war through to her wry and trenchant old age in the year 2020. We follow her bruising experience in marriage, her probing of male truths, her adventures in motherhood and in China and we cannot fail to be moved by the questions she asks of life and the often unsatisfactory answers it provides.

Shy, sensible banker Stuart has trouble with women; that is, until a fortuitous singles night, where he meets Gillian, a picture restorer recovering from a destructive affair. Stuart's best friend Oliver is his complete opposite - a language teacher who 'talks like a dictionary', brash and feckless. Soon Stuart and Gillian are married, but it is not long before a tentative friendship between the three evolves into something far different.

 CONTENT WARNING: contains scenes of a sexual nature and explicit language