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Julian Barnes
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A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters Paperback – 27 November 1990

by Julian Barnes (Author)
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 585 ratings
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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.

Previous page
  1. Print length
    320 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Vintage
  4. Publication date
    27 November 1990
  5. Dimensions
    13.28 x 1.88 x 20.19 cm
  6. ISBN-10
    0679731377
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0679731375
  8. See all details
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Review

"Stunning ... a flawless diamond." --Chicago Sun-Times

"Playful, witty and entertaining." --Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Times Book Review

"Frequently brilliant, funny, thoughtful, iconoclastic and a delight to read." --Salman Rushdie, Observer

"At his best, Barnes is a dazzler." --Los Angeles Times

"It's a book to keep the reader on his toes." --The New York Review of Books

From the Back Cover

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!

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage; Reprint edition (27 November 1990)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0679731377
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0679731375
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.28 x 1.88 x 20.19 cm
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 585 ratings

About the author

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Julian Barnes

Julian Barnes

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Julian Barnes is the author of nine novels, including Metroland, Flaubert's Parrot, A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters, England, England and Arthur and George, and two collections of short stories, Cross Channel and The Lemon Table.

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4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
585 global ratings

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PauL L.
5.0 out of 5 stars Nice
Reviewed in Canada on 11 September 2023
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Good
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Prakruti Chaudhari
5.0 out of 5 stars Quality
Reviewed in India on 9 April 2024
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Received in proper packaging and good condition. It's good to be able to find books online when you are unable to find that one particular book at nearest bookstores.
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Caterina Fortuna
5.0 out of 5 stars An inventive and engaging read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 March 2019
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This is one of the most inventive and quixotic books I have ever had the pleasure of reading. The ‘history’ of the title is unfurled around a number of themes which are repeated across the chapters in a surprising way, sometimes treated with high comedy, sometimes touching upon deep human questions.
The book does have an uneven quality and I can imagine that every reader will find here something to love and something to hate. To my mind, the most engaging part was the chapter on the Raft of the Medusa. I am conversant with the sources that Barnes has drawn on for this, but he has transformed them in such a way that, somewhere between art history and humanist speculation, the writing has the power to move in a profound way. I would buy the book for this chapter alone.
8 people found this helpful
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Anton Matytsin
5.0 out of 5 stars I think this is one of the best novels/short story collections written in the last 30 years
Reviewed in the United States on 3 November 2014
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I think this is one of the best novels/short story collections written in the last 30 years. It is a pleasurable and deep reflection on human nature, on memory, on love, and on how we, as a species, try to grapple with the complexity of the surrounding world. The author writes beautifully (I have read pretty much all of his work, and would say this is his best). It will make you laugh a lot, it will make you think a lot, and you will come away with a definite sense of satisfaction and unease.
Obviously this is not a whole history of the world (some of the reviewers seem surprised by this, failing to grasp the self-deprecating irony of the project), but a collection of interwoven reflections from a variety of perspectives (human and animal alike). The change of narrative voice is perhaps the most interesting thing about this book, as the reader constantly encounters a new perspective and, at times, has a hard time distinguishing "fact" from "fiction." This is, of course, Barnes's very point. The author's own narrative voice finally comes to us in the half chapter between 8 and 9 where he reveals (or seems to, anyway,) his own view of history: "History isn't what happened. History is just what historians tell us. There was a pattern, a plan, a movement, expansion, the march of democracy; it is a tapestry, a flow of events, a complex narrative, connected, explicable. One good story leads to another."
21 people found this helpful
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7727elke
5.0 out of 5 stars Tolles Buch!
Reviewed in Germany on 15 December 2014
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Kannte das Buch schon! Habe es verliehen und nie zurück bekommen! Deshalb wieder bestellt, weil großartig!!! So was von witzig und außergewöhnlich!
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