The Gigolo: Françoise Sagan (Penguin Modern)

'The sap had dried up; the sap, the incentive, the fever, the desire to do, to act, to act the fool, make love, create.' A middle-aged woman breaks with her handsome young lover; a placid husband is suspected of infidelity; and a dying man reflects on his extramarital affairs, in these tales of love and disillusionment from the author of Bonjour Tristesse.