Книги автора: Frédéric Beigbeder

Already a huge hit in France, the new novel from Independent Foreign Fiction Award-winning author of ‘Windows on the World’.In his most autobiographical text to date, Beigbeder recounts his stay in a French police cell in January 2008, after he was arrested for snorting cocaine off a car bonnet outside a nightclub in the super-chic 8th arrondissement of Paris. As he lies in the cell, he revisits his childhood, from the carefree days when his grandfather taught him to skim pebbles at the beach in Cénitz, to his parents’ divorce, the conflicting influences of his hedonistic father and studious, seemingly conventional brother who ‘has it all’, and his own first, unrequited loves. This patchwork of memories is as much a portrait of the era as it is the story of a fragile, self-critical man who has finally dropped the mask.Sharp, witty – with a particularly pitiless irony directed at himself – and yet tender, ‘A French Novel’ is a gem. Beigbeder’s reminiscences, his search for answers in the lost country of his childhood, will speak to a whole generation searching for its soul.

A daring, moving fictional account of the last moments of a father and his two sons atop the World Trade Centre on September 11.‘The only way to know what took place in the restaurant on the 107th Floor of the North Tower, World Trade Center on September 11th 2001 is to invent it.'Weaving together fact and fiction, empathy and dark humour, autobiography and intellect, ‘Windows on the World’ dares to confront the terrifying image that has come to define our world, the image onto which we project our fears, our compassion, our anger, our incomprehension.Beigbeder is a fierce, furious, infuriating chronicler of human iniquity and human suffering, and this book is a controversial, yet surprisingly humane attempt to depict the most awful event of recent memory.

Already a huge hit in France, the new novel from Independent Foreign Fiction Award-winning author of ‘Windows on the World’.In his most autobiographical text to date, Beigbeder recounts his stay in a French police cell in January 2008, after he was arrested for snorting cocaine off a car bonnet outside a nightclub in the super-chic 8th arrondissement of Paris. As he lies in the cell, he revisits his childhood, from the carefree days when his grandfather taught him to skim pebbles at the beach in Cénitz, to his parents’ divorce, the conflicting influences of his hedonistic father and studious, seemingly conventional brother who ‘has it all’, and his own first, unrequited loves. This patchwork of memories is as much a portrait of the era as it is the story of a fragile, self-critical man who has finally dropped the mask.Sharp, witty – with a particularly pitiless irony directed at himself – and yet tender, ‘A French Novel’ is a gem. Beigbeder’s reminiscences, his search for answers in the lost country of his childhood, will speak to a whole generation searching for its soul.

One night in a Parisian nightclub and the aftermath of a marriage provide the stories for these two novels by Frederic Beigbeder, award-winning author of ‘Windows on the World’.In ‘Holiday in a Coma’, Marc Marronnier, a shallow, superficial, rich Parisian who works as an advertising executive, is invited by his old friend to the opening of a new nightclub called The Shitter (a satirical take on the famous Paris nightclub Les Bains Douche). Taking place over a single unforgettable night, the novel documents everything from the pit-bull bouncer on the door, to the drugs, cocktails and wannabes who frequent the club, and Marc’s attempts to seduce a catwalk model – any one will do. A catalogue of degeneracy, drugs, sex and decibels, ‘Holiday in a Coma’ is written with a fury and passion that reflect the author's own relationship with a world and he both loves and loathes.In ‘Love Lasts Three Years’, Marc Marronnier has just been divorced and – shallow opportunist that he is – has decided to write a book about it. He has a theory that love lasts no more than three years, and here – recounting the highs and lows of his marriage and taking us through brash nightclubs, vainglorious offices and soulless designer apartments – he brings to bear the theoretical and the empirical to prove his point. Both frightening and funny, the book reads like a diary: sometimes tender and real, sometimes fantastical and cruel, peppered with Beigbeder’s acerbic one-liners and trademark wit.

A daring, moving fictional account of the last moments of a father and his two sons atop the World Trade Centre on September 11.‘The only way to know what took place in the restaurant on the 107th Floor of the North Tower, World Trade Center on September 11th 2001 is to invent it.'Weaving together fact and fiction, empathy and dark humour, autobiography and intellect, ‘Windows on the World’ dares to confront the terrifying image that has come to define our world, the image onto which we project our fears, our compassion, our anger, our incomprehension.Beigbeder is a fierce, furious, infuriating chronicler of human iniquity and human suffering, and this book is a controversial, yet surprisingly humane attempt to depict the most awful event of recent memory.