While walking in the Swiss Alps, two English travellers fall into a space-warp, and suddenly find themselves in another world.

In the course of a lively drinking party, a group of Athenian intellectuals exchange views on eros, or desire. From their conversation emerge a series of subtle reflections on gender roles, sex in society and the sublimation of basic human instincts.

An English translation of the French original.

Young officer John Hilliard returns to his battalion in France following a period of sick leave in England. Despite having trouble adjusting to all the new faces, the stiff and reserved Hilliard forms a friendship with David Barton, an open and cheerful new recruit who has still to be bloodied in battle.

It was the war to end all wars, the global struggle that would finally make the world safe for democracy - at any cost. But one American soldier has paid a price beyond measure. And within the disfigured flesh that was once a vision of youth lives a spirit that cannot accept what the world has become.

A collection of essays by W G Sebald, which provide insight into the themes that came to dominate his life. It also includes four pieces that pay tribute to Corsica, weaving elegiacally between past and present.