Georges Perec (1936-82), author of the novel Life: A User's Manual, was one of the most surprising of all modern French writers. The pieces in this volume show him to be at times playful, more serious at others, but writing always with the lightest of touches. He had the keenest of eyes for the 'infra-ordinary', the things we do every day - eating, sleeping, working - and the places we do them in without giving them a moment's thought. But behind the lightness and humour, there is also the sadness of a French Jewish boy who lost his parents in the Second World War and found comfort in the material world around him, and above all in writing.