Through the Window, Julian Barnes, 2012

Seventeen jewels in this collection—informative, clever, humorous, insightful, quirky, and very well sculpted full of words that needed to be looked up but which felt just right where used.  An uncommon collection of fascinating characters including Penelope Fitzgerald, Arthur Hugh Clough (a neglected contemporary of Matthew Arnold), George Orwell, Ford Maddox Ford, Kipling, Felix Feneon, Michael Houllebeq, Lydia Davis, Edith Wharton, Didion and Oates about becoming widowed, Nicolas-Sebastian RochdeChamfort (great aphorist of the 18^th C), and Prosper Merimee (author of novella that Carmen is based upon, friend of Stendahl, lover of George Sand, but written about here because he was the Inspector General of Historic Monuments in France for 26 years!).  What a wide ranging and intelligent writer.  Superb!