A short story collection by one of England’s most talented and versatile writers.  Barnes explores the sadness, frustration, anger, and loss of growing old in 11 stories that feature an aging 60 something man through the lens of haircuts over the decades, the story of two repressed Swedes in the 19^th C who lose their only chance at love because each is withdrawn and stilted, two widows meeting for tea each month and discussing their, unknown to them, incomplete or inaccurate recollections of their husbands, the tale of an aging former British soldier whose visit to London for his annual ‘dust up with Babs’ ends with the knowledge that she has died as will he and his wife, a story of an aging Russian novelist whose affair with a young actress playing one of his characters is realized only in his imagination (renunciation), a wonderful story of a a gay man who devotes himself to rooting out coughers at the Royal Festival Hall after his partner refuses to go to concerts because he observed his partner trying to pick up a younger man at one, another 19^th C story of a Frenchman who lives on bark and pears in order to be the last one living from a lottery that supported the building of the baths,  my favorite story ala 84 Charing Cross Road in which Sylvia Winstanley starts a correspondence with Barnes when she enters an Old Folkery (teared up when she died!),  a story narrated by a devoted wife caring for her husband who is demented and talks dirty, smiling only when she reads cookbooks to him (Oy Vey!),  a story about a son whose parents separate in their 80’s and his awareness of how little he really knew them, and the final story about an aging, alcoholic composer, famous but failing who finds joy in the returning cranes who fly over his home.  A versatile and moving set of stories, well worth the effort.