Book of the Week: Middle-class love and sex and agony

Stephanie Johnson luxuriates in the new Julian Barnes novel – a story of adultery which “wrestles with the deepest conflicts of human existence.” Julian Barnes may be seen as a leading exponent of the Hampstead novel. This is, in England, a pejorative term, even though great writers such as Margaret Drabble and Margaret Forster have … Read more

In which Julian Barnes toddles along on an intellectual daytrip

Guy Somerset takes on the new novel by Julian Barnes. Martin, Ian, Julian – those Brits, how they like to dabble in Eastern Europe. For the most part, it’s been reviewing the latest Bohumil Hrabal or Ivan Klima in one of the weekend newspapers or an approving nod to Milan Kundera or Josef Skvorecky in … Read more