Used book – Saveur du temps, Jean d' Ormesson

Chronicles of Time Passing.

"The society we live in is a society of the novel," writes the nimble Jean d'Ormesson, who playfully twists Guy Debord's memorable phrase. A maxim that illustrates his style: incisive and witty. And his position: never far from literature.

We rediscover with delight his contagious passion for books and authors. Praises for giants (Chateaubriand, Marguerite Yourcenar, Albert Camus), but also an affectionate nod to the perpetual hero of his childhood, Arsène Lupin, gentleman burglar, or to the astonishing Piaf. This book, which proceeds by enthusiasms and criticisms, panegyric and flights of fancy, resembles a cabinet of curiosities. Alternately erudite or polemical, these hundred chronicles charm with their freshness and surprise with their timeliness. Thirty, even forty years later, they continue to transport us both out of time and into the heart of our time. As surely as an autobiography, they paint a portrait of their author, an ironic and wonderstruck witness to the world.