"It's hard to see how anyone is ever going to better this User's Manual to the life of Georges Perec" - Gilbert Adair, Sunday TimesWinner of the Prix Goncourt for Biography, 1994George Perec (1936-82) was one of the most significant European writers of the twentieth century and undoubtedly the most versatile and innovative writer of his generation.David Bellos's comprehensive biography - which also provides the first full survey of Perec's irreverent, polym...

"An award-winning translator describes and defends his profession. . . . Ultimately illuminating, even transformative." — Kirkus Reviews"Dazzingly inventive." — New York Times Book Review , A Notable Book of the Year"A richly original cultural history." — The Economist , A Book ...

Jacques Tati's Monsieur Hulot, unmistakeable with his pipe, brolly and striped socks, was a creation of sheer slapstick genius that made audiences around the world laugh at the sheer absurdity of life. This biography charts Tati's rise and fall, from his earliest beginnings as a music hall mime during the Depression, to the success of Jour de Fete and Mon Oncle, to Playtime, the grandiose masterpiece that left the once delebrated director bankrupt and begging for...

The full story of one of France's greatest cinema legends, a clown whose film-making innovation was to turn everyday life into an art form.Jacques Tati's Monsieur Hulot, unmistakable with his pipe, brolly and striped socks, was a creation of slapstick genius that made audiences around the world laugh at the sheer absurdity of life. This biography charts Tati's rise and fall, from his earliest beginnings as a music hall mime during the Depression, to the success of Jour de F**êt...

This "impeccably researched and pithily written" volume reveals the dramatic life of Victor Hugo's literary masterpiece ( The New York Times ).Les Misérables is among the most popular and enduring novels ever written. Like Inspector Javert's dogged pursuit of Jean Valjean, its appeal has never waned since its first publication in 1862. Whether we encounter Victor Hugo's story on the page, onstage, or on-screen,

Airman, war hero, immigrant, law student, diplomat, novelist and celebrity spouse, Romain Gary had several lives thrust upon him by the history of the twentieth century, but he also aspired to lead many more. He wrote more than two dozen books and a score of short stories under several different names in two languages, English and French, neither of which was his mother tongue. Gary had a gift for narrative that endeared him to ordinary readers, but won him little respect among critics far...

**A New Yorker Best Book of 2024A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice"Lively, opinionated, and ultra-timely." —Louis Menand, The New YorkerA fascinating and original history of an idea that now controls and monetizes almost everything we do.**Copyright is everywhere. Your smartphone incorporates thousands of items of intellectual property. Someone owns the reproduction rights to photographs of your dining table. At this very ...

A long-lost French novel in which three soldiers return home from an unpopular, unspeakable warWhen On Leave was published in Paris in 1957, as France's engagement in Algeria became ever more bloody, it told people things they did not want to hear. It vividly described what it was like for soldiers to return home from an unpopular war in a faraway place. The book received a handful of reviews, it was never reprinted, it disappeared from view. With no outco...

In the early fifteenth century, as winter falls away, the people of Albania know that their fate is sealed. They have refused to negotiate with the Ottoman Empire, and war is now inevitable.Soon enough dust kicked up by Turkish horses is spotted from a citadel. Brightly coloured banners, hastily constructed minarets and tens of thousands of men fill the plain below. From this moment on, the world is waiting to hear that the fortress has fallen.The Siege tells the enthralling ...

Copyright is everywhere. Your smartphone incorporates thousands of items of intellectual property. Someone owns the reproduction rights to photographs of your dining table. At this very moment, battles are raging over copyright in the output of artificial intelligence programs. Not only books but wallpaper, computer programs, pop songs, cartoon characters, snapshots, and cuddly toys are now deemed to be intellectual properties—making copyright a labyrinthine construction of laws with color...

'I remember hula hoops.''I remember Hermes handbags, with their tiny padlocks.''I remember that Stendhal liked spinach.''I remember that I dreamed of one day having all 57 varieties of Heinz.'Both an affectionate portrait of mid-century Paris and a daring memoir, Georges Perec's I Remember is now available for the first time in English, with an introduction by David Bellos.In 480 numbered statements, all beginning identically with 'I remember',...