Raymond Queneau

"Queneau uses a variety of literary styles and forms in ninety-nine exercises, which retell the same story about a minor brawl aboard a bus."--

Set in Dublin during the 1916 rebellion, this novel tells of a beauty trapped in a post office seized by rebels. This tale celebrates the imagination's power to transmute crude sensationalism into pure pleasure.

Seated in a Paris cafe, a man glimpses another man, a shadowy figure hurrying to the train. Who is he? he wonders, and how does he live? Instantly the shadow comes to life, precipitating a series of hilarious encounters involving a range of disreputable and heartwarming characters that prove as incredible as "real life." The Bark Tree is an enchantment itself.

The last work written by Flaubert that was not quite complete by his death in 1880, "Bouvard and Pecuchet" is his characteristically satirical work revolving around two Parisian copy-clerks. Though they meet on a park bench in the middle of a hot summer day, their friendship grows to a remarkable degree, so much so that when one receives an unexpected inheritance, they both decide to dedicate themselves to the exploration of ideas in the countryside....