A collection of related stories written by associates of the Oulipo - that group of formalist experimenters in literature. The first, eponymous, story is by Georges Perec, and each subsequent stories builds off that, and sometimes also off the other stories too. These shorts are, clearly, highly referential, they are often recursive (writing about writing (about writing...)), and many are written in a pseudo-academic style, which I guess is in the nature of the exercise's conceit.

Broadly, the stories fall into a few types - those which elaborate on Perec's initial story; those which, more independently, further its underlying theme; those which are more about Perec's writing of the story; and those about the whole phenomenon of its existance. Some of those are more interesting than others.

It rather felt like being at a (fairly long) dinner party where everyone else knows each other much better than you know anybody. You occasionally get their jokes or allusions, but you get the feeling that much is going over your head. As such, particularly as the book wore on, and the stories tended to the more 'meta', it felt like more and more of a chore. I think the footnotes could have helped explain some of the references, but maybe that would have spoiled the joke.

As a sidenote, I did enjoy Étienne Lécroart's story, where the references were to classic bande desinée stories, complete with a few cute illustrations.