Shortlisted for the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize

Paris, near the turn of 1932-3. Three young friends meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and their friend Raymond Aron, who opens their eyes to a radical new way of thinking...

'It's not often that you miss your bus stop because you're so engrossed in reading a book about existentialism, but I did exactly that... The story of Sartre, Beauvoir, Camus ...