Two trailblazing novels by Georges Perec, Things: Jerome and Sylvie, the young upwardly mobile couple, lust for the good life. They wanted life's enjoyment, but this equated to ownership. A Man Asleep: A nameless student attempts to purify himself entirely of material desires and ambitions.

Combining fiction and autobiography in a quite unprecedented way, Georges Perec leads the reader inexorably towards the horror that lies at the origin of the post-World War Two world and at the crux of his own identity.