Flaubert's Parrot

Description

'An intricate and delightful novel' (Graham Greene) from Booker prize-winning author Julian Barnes. Geoffrey Braithwaite is a retired doctor haunted by an obsession with the great French literary genius, Gustave Flaubert. As Geoffrey investigates the mystery of the stuffed parrot Flaubert borrowed from the Museum of Rouen to help research one of his novels, we learn an enormous amount about the writer's work, family, lovers, thought processes, health and obsessions. But we also gradually come to learn some important and shocking details about Geoffrey himself.

Julian Barnes is the author of twelve novels, including The Sense of an Ending, which won the 2011 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. He has also written three books of short stories, Cross Channel, The Lemon Table and Pulse; four collections of essays; and two books of non-fiction, Nothing to be Frightened Of and the Sunday Times Number One bestseller Levels of Life. He lives in London.

Barnes manages to be erudite but extremely funny too... You never know what Barnes is going to do next and I admire that.' -- Caroline Rees * Daily Express * Delightful and enriching... A book to revel in! -- Joseph Heller Endless food for thought, beautifully written... A tour de force -- Germaine Greer A gem: an unashamed literary novel that is also unashamed to be readable, and broadly entertaining. Bravo! -- John Irving Julian Barnes' wry and graceful book, part novel, part stealthy literary criticism, traces the marks Flaubert made on a forgetting world. The writing is unfailingly sharp and often very funny, and among the best prose I have read in years * Sunday Times *