Letters from London

by Julian Barnes

Overview

A sparkling collection of essays that illustrates the infinite variety of contemporary life in London—from the bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending, "an exceptionally accomplished [and] ingenious stylist" (The New York Review of Books).

"A splended collection of journalism ... uniformly fine, closely observed and informative." —The Wall Street Journal

With brilliant wit, idiosyncratic intelligence, and a bold grasp of intricate political realities, the celebrated author of Flaubert's Parrot turns his satiric glance homeward to England.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780679761617
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/24/1995
Series:	Vintage International
Edition description:	1st edition
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.23(w) x 7.91(h) x 0.70(d)

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.

Hometown:

London, England

Date of Birth:

January 19, 1946

Place of Birth:

Leicester, England

Education:

Degree in modern languages from Magdalen College, Oxford, 1968

Editorial Reviews

"A splended collection of journalism ... uniformly fine, closely observed and informative." —The Wall Street Journal

From the Publisher

The essays in this collection of the celebrated British author of Flaubert's Parrot were originally published in The New Yorker and span the four years of Barnes's tenure as that magazine's London correspondent. From the debacle of Lloyd's of London's decline to the fatwa declared on Salman Rushdie, Barnes explores his topics with an innate curiosity and a merciless wit, using each event to explore the social and political landscape of modern London. If Letters from London has a shortcoming, it is one inherent in any such collection: lack of timeliness. With entries dating back to 1990, it is inevitable that portions of the book seem a bit stale. Some readers may be tempted to skip such missives as ``Vote Glenda!'' on actress Glenda Jackson's 1992 bid for a Parliamentary seat. But as Barnes notes in his preface, he is admirably ``wary of zeitgeist journalism and decade summarizing,'' and it is this refusal to proselytize or prognosticate that distinguishes Barnes's observations. On the 1994 ceremonial opening of the ``chunnel'' linking Britain and France, and the British anxiety over a possible resulting influx of rabid French animals, he notes, ``It was as if, lining up behind Mitterrand and the Queen as they cut the tricolor ribbons at Calais were packs of swivel-eyed dogs, fizzing foxes and slavering squirrels, all waiting to jump on the first boxcar to Folkestone and sink their teeth into some Kentish flesh.'' Probably of greatest interest to Barnes's many fans (and equally great numbers of Anglophiles), this collection is nonetheless a consistently pleasurable opportunity to watch a razor-sharp mind at work. (July)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly