What a discovery! The author had amused me with his bestseller Eat, Pray, Love but here it impresses me by the fineness of the characters mentioned, rich evocations of places visited, his prolific writing details to outdated expressions purposely so fluid, however ... This novel takes us through a century around the world that moves everything is changing around them, both economic, sociological, even philosophical. We find real characters, cleverly mixed with fictional characters, which make it all the more vivid account. It took a lot of documentation to write this book, but it did no heavier and reads very nicely. Read in English, but the translation seems to scratch, after reading an excerpt on Kindle. A great reading pleasure!