After the best-sellingArthur & GeorgeandNothing to Be Frightened Of,JulianBarnes returns with fourteen stories about longing and loss, friendshipand love, whose mysterious natures he examines with his trademark witand observant eye.From an imperial capital in the eighteenthcentury to Garibaldi's adventures in the nineteenth, from the vineyardsof Italy to the English seaside in our time, he finds the 'stages,transitions, arguments' that define us. A newly divorced real estateagent can't resist invading his reticent girlfriend's privacy, but theinformation he finds reveals only his callously shallow curiosity. Acouple come together through an illicit cigarette and a song shared overthe din of a Chinese restaurant. A widower revisting the Scottishisland he'd treasured with his wife learns how difficult it is to purgeoneself of grief. And throughout, friends gather regularly at dinnerparties and perfect the art of cerebral, sometimes bawdy banter aboutthe world passing before them.Whether domestic or extraordinary,each story pulses with the resonance, spark, and poignant humor forwhich Barnes is justly heralded.