This volume contains two great writings (novels?) by Julian Barnes. They are both very non-traditional retelling of known stories.
The first book, “Flaubert’s Parrot” takes an interesting, fresh approach for a biography of the author of Madame Bovary. The several chapers in the book note some events in Flaubert’s life and writings tying them to mythical comments about his life, people who expect this to be a straight-forward narrative or typical biography will be disappointed, but I found it very enlightening and entertaining.

The second writing, “History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters” is also an unorthodox story. Barnes retells key events in world history, well maybe not so key, and gives them his own spin. Several of themare hilariious, like “The Mountain”, that tells the story of two Irish women who climb Mount Ararat. ( )