Barnes' long and passionate relationship with La Belle France began 40 years ago, and in these essays on the country and its culture, he combines a lively appreciation, a seemingly infinite sphere of reference, and prose as stylish as classic haute couture.

Barnes' long and passionate relationship with La Belle France began 40 years ago, and in these essays on the country and its culture, he combines a lively appreciation, a seemingly infinite sphere of reference, and prose as stylish as classic haute couture.

** For anyone who loves France (or just feels strongly about it) comes a "beautifully written" collection of essays (* The New York Times Book Review)on the country and its culture--from the bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending.**Julian Barnes's appreciation extends from France's vanishing peasantry to its hyper-literate pop singers, from the gleeful iconoclasm of nouvelle vague cinema to the orgy of drugs and suffering that is the Tour de France. Above all, Barnes is an unparalleled connoisseur of French writing and writers. Here are the prolific and priapic Simenon, Baudelaire, Sand and Sartre, and several dazzling excursions on the prickly genius of Flaubert. Lively yet discriminating in its enthusiasm, seemingly infinite in its range of reference, and written in prose as stylish as haute couture, Something to Declare * is an unadulterated joy.