Metroland

Only the author of Flaubert's Parrot could give us a novel that is at once a note-perfect rendition of the angsts and attitudes of English adolescence, a giddy comedy of sexual awakening in the 1960s, and a portrait of the accommodations that some of us call "growing up" and others "selling out."

Only the author of Flaubert's Parrot could give us a novel that is at once a note-perfect rendition of the angsts and attitudes of English adolescence, a giddy comedy of sexual awakening in the 1960s, and a portrait of the accommodations that some of us call "growing up" and others "selling out." "Barnes writes like a dream."--Village Voice Literary Supplement.

Only the author of Flaubert's Parrot could give us a novel that is at once a note-perfect rendition of the angsts and attitudes of English adolescence, a giddy comedy of sexual awakening in the 1960s, and a portrait of the accommodations that some of us call "growing up" and others "selling out."

Jay Parini

"One would have to look hard to find a wryer, more lovingly detailed account of intellectual and sexual innocence abroad...Metroland portrays at once the disturbing aspects of adulthood and the consolations of maturity, a balance that makes one glad Jullian Barnes is still young and still writing." -- The New York Times

In smart, rhythmic prose, Julian Barnes can deconstruct English-French relations, marriage, or simply the history of the world -- he can, and has, in a diverse and inventive body of work that includes Flaubert's Parrot, Metroland, and Letters from London.