Flaubert's Parrot. A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters

In these two masterpieces of post-modernism Julian Barnes explores themes of identity, authenticity and history. Flaubert's Parrot, shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1984, concerns the attempts of an increasingly bemused reseracher to establish certain facts about a famous French novelist and the stuffed bird which used to sit on his desk. A History of the World in 10 ? Chapters blends fact and fiction in a virtuoso kaleidoscope of vignettes from Noah's time to the present. One of the author's most inventive works, it was praised by Salman Rushdie as 'frequently brilliant, funny, thoughtful, iconoclastic and a delight to read'. Julian Barnes won the 2011 Booker Prize for his novel The Sense of an Ending.