A History of the World in Ten and a Half Chapters (Cambridge Literature). This item is unavailable.A History of the World in Ten and a Half Chapters (Cambridge Literature)

Cambridge Literature is a series of literary texts edited for study by students aged 14–18 in English-speaking classrooms. It will include novels, poetry, short stories, essays, travel-writing and other non-fiction. The series will be extensive and open-ended and will provide school students with a range of edited texts taken from a wide geographical spread. It will feature writing in English from various genres and differing times. A History of the World in 101/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes is edited by Ron Middleton of the University of Reading.

Fact, fiction, myth, opinion - Barnes's series of disjointed narratives about Noah's Ark, terrorist hijackers, shipwreck, woodworm, love and more is all of these. It leaves you torn between thinking that its sum is greater than its parts and that, then again, some of the parts are pretty damned good too, especially the half-chapter titled "Parenthesis". Somehow this pithy new Alex Jennings recording perfectly succeeds in combining the various "history is bunk" and "love conquers all" strands. --Sue Arnold, The Guardian