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A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters
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A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters Paperback - 1990

by Julian Barnes

An eccentiric, playfully skewed, surprisingly comprehensive chronicle of life on planet Earth. A novel whose threads of coincidence and hidden connection are woven into a narrative tapestry brilliant with wit, intelligence, and emotion.


Summary

Funny, ironic, erudite, surprising, and not afraid to take a dive overboard into the depths of sorrow and loss. My novel of the year' Nadime GordimerBeginning with an unlikely stowaway's account of life on board Noah's Ark, A History of the World in 10½ Chapters presents a surprising, subversive, fictional history of earth told from several kaleidoscopic perspectives. Noah disembarks from his ark but he and his Voyage are not forgotten: they are revisited in on other centuries and other climes - by a Victorian spinster mourning her father, by an American astronaut on an obsessive personal mission. We journey to the Titanic, to the Amazon, to the raft of the Medusa, and to an ecclesiastical court in medieval France where a bizarre case is about to begin...This is no ordinary history, but something stranger, a challenge and a delight for the reader's imagination. Ambitious yet accessible, witty and playfully serious, this is the work of a brilliant novelist.

From the publisher

A "playful, witty, and entertaining" book (The New York Times Book Review) that offers an exhilarating vision of the world, starting with the voyage of Noah's ark and ending with a sneak preview of heaven--from the bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending.

It's a hilariously revisionist account of Noah's ark, narrated by a passenger who doesn't appear in Genesis. It's a sneak preview of heaven. It encompasses the stories of a cruise ship hijacked by terrorists and of woodworms tried for blasphemy in sixteenth-century France. It explores the relationship of fact to fabulation and the antagonism between history and love. In short, A History of the World in 101/2 Chapters is a grandly ambitious and inventive work of fiction, in the traditions of Joyce and Calvino, from the author of the widely acclaimed Flaubert's Parrot.

From the jacket flap

This is, in short, a complete, unsettling, and frequently exhilarating vision of the world, starting with the voyage of Noah's ark and ending with a sneak preview of heaven!

Details

  • Title A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters
  • Author Julian Barnes
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition [ Edition: Repri
  • Pages 320
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Vintage, New York, New York, U.S.A.
  • Date 1990-11-27
  • ISBN 9780679731375 / 0679731377
  • Weight 0.52 lbs (0.24 kg)
  • Dimensions 8.03 x 5.14 x 0.74 in (20.40 x 13.06 x 1.88 cm)
  • Library of Congress subjects World history - Fiction
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 90050161
  • Dewey Decimal Code FIC

Media reviews

Citations

  • Publishers Weekly, 10/26/1990, Page 0

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 Mdicis and the Prix Fmina, and in 1988 was made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He lives in London.
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A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters
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A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters

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by Julian Barnes

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