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Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2011. From the hairdessing salon where an old man measures out his life in haircuts, to the concert hall where a music lover carries out an obsessive campaign against those who cough in concerts; from the woman reads elaborate recipes to her sick husband as a substitute for sex, to the woman 'incarcerated' in an old people's home beginning a correspondence with an author that enriches both their lives - all Barnes' characters, in their different ways, square up to death and rage against the dying light.

This is the most enjoyable of all Barnes's books." "

'I don't believe in God, but I miss Him'. Julian Barnes' new book is, among many things, a family memoir, an exchange with his brother (a philosopher), a meditation on mortality and the fear of death, a celebration of art, an argument with and about God, and a homage to the French writer Jules Renard. Though he warns us that 'this is not my autobiography', the result is a tour of the mind of one of our most brilliant writers. When Angela Carter reviewed Barnes' first novel, "Metroland", she praised the mature way he wrote about death. Now, nearly thirty years later, he returns to the subject in a wise , funny and constantly surprising book, which defies category and classification - except as Barnesian.

The character's in Julian Barnes' new collection of stories are growing old and facing the end of their lives - some with bitter regret, some with resignation and others still with raging defiance. The settings range from nineteenth-century Sweden an d Russia to a suburban 'Barnet Shop', where the narrator measure out his life in haircuts, and a South Bank concert hall where a music lover carries out an obsessive campaign of revenge against those who cough in concerts. In 'Knowing French' a fierc ely independent eighty-year old begins a correspondence with an author - 'Dear Dr Barnes' - that enriches both their lives. A woman reads elaborate recipes to her sick husband in 'Appetite'; a retired soldier in 'Hygiene' makes his annual trip to att end a regimental dinner, run errands for his wife and spend the afternoon with a tart called Babs. In a collection that is wise and funny, clever and moving, Julian Barnes has created characters who passions and longings are made all the stronger by the knowledge that, for them, time is almost at an end.Upozornenie: Vzhľadom na častejšie obmeny vydaní tejto knihy v zahraničí, kus, ktorý vám zašleme, nemusí mať rovnakú obálku ako je zobrazená tu. Zobrazená obálka môže byť iba ilustračná. Obsah kn ihy aj cena budú však identické, bez ohľadu na obálku.

Ti dva si nemohou být vzdálenější. Arthur Conan Doyle právě slavnostně vzkřísil z mrtvých Sherlocka Holmese a převzal šlechtický titul, kdežto George Edalji je jako provinční advokát a životní zelenáč zahloubán do práva odtrženého od jeho vykonavatelů. Arthur pluje na obláčku slávy a dovede si ji užít, zatímco George by rád prošel životem bez povšimnutí druhých, pokud budou respektovat pár jeho neškodných zásad. Ale neklame nás pod vlivem životopisných klišé zrak? Nestojí před námi ve skutečnosti vdovec sužovaný tím `že miloval, jak nejlépe může muž milovat ženu, kterou nemiluje`? A na druhé straně mladík „poněkud nevhodné` pleti, jehož tunelové vidění nedovoluje pochopit, že se stal terčem rasové nenávisti, která mu klade za vinu neslýchané násilnosti páchané na zvířatech?

Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2011. Arthur and George grow up worlds and miles apart in late nineteenth-century Britain: Arthur in shabby-genteel Edinburgh, George in the vicarage of a small Staffordshire village. Arthur becomes a doctor, and then a writer; George a solicitor in Birmingham. Arthur is to become one of the most famous men of his age, George remains in hardworking obscurity. But as the new century begins, they are brought together by a sequence of events which made sensational headlines at the time as The Great Wyrley Outrages. With a mixture of detailed research and vivid imagination, Julian Barnes brings to life not just this long-forgotten case, but the inner workings of these two very different men. This is a novel in which the events of a hundred years ago constantly set off contemporary echoes, a novel about low crime and high spirituality, guilt and innocence, identity, nationality and race. Most of all it is a profound and moving meditation on the fateful difference between what we believe, what we know and what we can prove.

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction. As every schoolboy knows, you can fit the whole of England on the Isle of White. 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.

Christopher and Toni found in each other the perfect companion for that universal adolescent pastime: smirking at the world as you find it. In between training as flaneurs and the grind of school they cast a cynical eye over their various dislikes: parents with their lives of spotless emptiness, Third Division (North) football teams, God, commuters and girls, and the inhabitants of Metroland, the strip of suburban dormitory Christopher calls home. Longing for real life to begin, we follow Christopher to Paris in time for les evenements of 1968, only to miss it all in a haze of sex, French theatre and first love, leading, to Toni's disappointment, back to Metroland.

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...

Co začíná jako román o mladé dívce vyrůstající na anglickém venkově během druhé světové války, se proměňuje v příběh úchvatného a rozmanitého života. Neobvyklá a sympatická hrdinka Jean se provdá a po dvaceti letech opustí svého manžela krátce předtím, než se jim narodí syn. Ve středním věku se spřátelí se synovou přítelkyní, která se ji marně snaží svést. Když Jean oslaví sté narozeniny, vzpomíná na mladého pilota bojového letounu a jeho vyprávění o tom, jak létal ke slunci. Jean našla odpovědi na všechny otázky svého dlouhého života, ale proč byl pilot fascinovaný pohledem do slunce, jí až dosud unikalo.

The stories in Julian Barnes' long-awaited third collection are attuned to rhythms and currents: of the body, of love and sex, illness and death, connections and conversations. Each character is bent to a pulse, propelled on by success and loss, by n ew beginnings and endings. In "East Wind" a divorced estate agent falls in love with a European waitress, but is tempted, despite his happiness, to investigate her past; in "The Limner" a deaf painter discovers his patron's likeness after spending ti me among his staff. Anchored off the coast of Brazil, Garibaldi spies his future wife through a telescope, and in "Marriage Lines", a widower returns to a remote Scottish Island to relive a favourite holiday. These are also lives in flux - in the 'st ages, transitions, arguments; incompatibilities which grow' - as in the title story, where a man reflects on the break-up of his marriage, brought into new perspective by the actions of his parents; two writers, a 'good team', return from an event re hearsing familiar arguments; in "Gardener's World", a couple bond, fall out and bond again over flowers and vegetable patches. Positioned in between are a series of evenings at "Phil & Joanna's", where among the topics of conversation - the environme nt, politics, the Britishness of marmalade, toilet graffiti and the perils of smoking - we witness the guests' lives shift in sections over the course of a year. Ranging from the domestic to the extraordinary, from the vineyards of Italy to the Engli sh seaside in winter, the stories in Pulse resonate and spark, each imbued with the humour, poignancy and perception that marks all Julian Barnes' work. This is an imaginative and expertly-constructed new collection from a master of the form.

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

Anthony Webster je šesťdesiatnik. Žije sám, je holohlavý, triedi odpad, udržiava byt v čistote a zveľaďuje ho, aby nestratil hodnotu. Anthony si neničí pneumatiky na aute neopatrnou jazdou a dobrovoľníči v nemocnici. Sám seba považuje za znášanlivého a vraví, že čas je na jeho strane. Už je vo veku, keď sa zvykne rekapitulovať. A spomínať viac ako predtým. Anthonymu sa pred očami odvíja príbeh o dávnom stredoškolskom priateľstve štvorice chlapcov, ktorého dôsledky postupne začínajú ovplyvňovať aj hrdinov dnešok. Mudrovali vtedy o zákonitostiach fungovania všehomíra i o všeličom inom. A najmä: túžili po láske mladých žien. Osud im prihral Veroniku z Chislehurstu. Meandre Anthonyho pamäti nadobúdajú nový tvar i hĺbku, voda v nich kalnie. Vynárajú sa staré zážitky. Nasvietené v súčasnosti prebiehajúcimi udalosťami získavajú inú farbu, inú chuť aj iný zápach. Svet je zvláštny. Život tiež. A ľudia najzvláštnejší. Víťazná kniha Man Booker Prize 2011, najvýznamnejšej literárnej ceny v anglicky hovoriacom a píšucom svete. Skúmanie vzťahov a dejov minulých z ich konca. Nemenného, no prinášajúceho poznanie, zmysel súčasnosti tých zdanlivo ukončených dejov a vzťahov. Čítavý, skvelý text. Literatúra.

This title is 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 in middle age. 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. "The Sense of an Ending" is the story of one man coming to terms with the mutable past. Laced with trademark precision, dexterity and insight, it is the work of one of the world's most distinguished writers.

Kniha Juliana Barnese je silným a stylisticky vytříbeným příběhem paměti, historie, stárnutí a zodpovědnosti. Stárnoucí vypravěč Tony Webster se na prahu smrti dočká odhalení tajemství, které od základu mění perspektivu, jež si o svém zcela obyčejném životě vytvořil. Bookerova cena za r. 2011.

In these seventeen essays (and one short story) the 2011 Man Booker Prize winner examines British, French and American writers who have meant most to him, as well as the cross-currents and overlappings of their different cultures. From the deceptiveness of Penelope Fitzgerald to the directness of Hemingway, from Kipling's view of France to the French view of Kipling, from the many translations of Madame Bovary to the fabulations of Ford Madox Ford, from the National Treasure Status of George Orwell to the despair of Michel Houellebecq, Julian Barnes considers what fiction is, and what it can do. As he writes in his preface, 'Novels tell us the most truth about life: what it is, how we live it, what it might be for, how we enjoy and value it, and how we lose it.' When his "Letters from London" came out in 1995, the "Financial Times" called him "our best essayist". This wise and deft collection confirms that judgment.