"Les combustibles"

Synopsis of Amélie Nothomb's "Les Combustibles":

The city is under siege. It's winter. In the university professor's apartment, where his assistant Daniel and the student Marina have taken refuge, only one fuel remains to keep the fire burning: books… Yes, but which books must be sacrificed and which deserve to be spared? Everyone has asked themselves this question at some point in their life: which book would you take to a desert island?

In this closed setting surrounded by bombs and sniper fire, the prolific novelist poses to her characters a question that is both perverse and existential: what book, what sentence from what author can bring as much comfort as a vital fire that warms?

Humour, irony and despair are subtly interwoven in this parable with singularly contemporary resonances.

Reservations required.